


put her roots down

by celeste9



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Accidental Plot, Age Difference, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drinking, F/M, Family, First Kiss, Force Ghosts, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Lightsaber Battles, Misunderstandings, Pining, Rey Skywalker, Romance, Self-Discovery, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Sparring, Teasing, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:32:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7319002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey’s quest for belonging leads her a long way from Jakku, to temple ruins and military bases and the Outer Rim. As she searches for the family she has spent her life longing for, she discovers that love comes in many forms and that sometimes it’s hardest to find what is right before your eyes.</p><p>Or, Rey learns how to look forward and not back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote a thing, and I’m not sure anyone will even want to read it, but I wrote it, and it’s not the fic I thought it would be when I started but I’m proud of it and it’s the longest single fic I’ve ever written and I hope somebody will enjoy it. :) Many thanks to deinonychus_1 for valiantly taking on the beta! This fic is complete but I'll be posting it in chapters to make my life easier, the plan is to put one up every other day. This first bit is admittedly mostly set-up. I’ve used some background from the novels but I have willfully ignored the Kylo Ren backstory from Bloodline because it doesn’t make sense to me.

On Jakku, Rey dreamed of family. Their faces were always indistinct, features blurred in her mind, but they always smiled and their lips were soft when they pressed kisses to her forehead. She dreamed of being loved, being held, being wanted. 

She would watch people in Niima, familiar ones and the uncommon new faces. Sometimes families came, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters. She would watch them and try to imagine what they were saying, what they were doing. She would try to imagine how it felt, having someone to care for you, to protect you, to always watch over you.

Rey could never quite picture it.

-

The first time Rey met Poe Dameron, it was in the midst of a crowded room full of Resistance members celebrating the completion of the map to Luke Skywalker and she hugged him without thinking. Or maybe he had hugged her; she wasn’t entirely clear on who had initiated what. She didn’t even know his name and it was exactly as awkward as you might expect. He was sweet, though, and his embarrassed nervousness somehow made Rey feel less dumb. 

As far as introductions go, it wasn’t terribly momentous, to say the least.

Then again, Rey felt, nothing about her was very momentous.

After they put the map together, everything seemed to pass in a bit of a blur. Rey was excited and nervous and conscious of the responsibility she was being given, to be the one to find Luke. She wasn’t entirely sure why it had to be her, but somehow she knew it was something she had to do. Not just because Leia had asked her to, or because Maz had told her she should, but because Rey herself knew it, deep in her bones.

The hardest part was leaving Finn behind. The doctor had told her he would be okay but it was difficult, seeing him lying there, still and quiet. 

“If it helps,” someone said, “I’ll watch over him while you’re gone.”

Rey raised her eyes and saw Poe standing there on the other side of Finn’s bed, watching her. He had been spending as much time in the med center as she had, not sleeping, his concern for Finn all over his face. Rey didn’t think Poe’s face hid much of anything; he displayed his emotions without shame. 

It had been him, she suddenly realized. The dark-haired pilot racing after Finn on the med cart after the Starkiller Base, running alongside him, murmuring to him to _stay with us, Finn, stay with me_. Everyone had been celebrating but him. That had been Poe.

“Thank you,” Rey said, the words feeling thick in her throat. She didn’t know what else to say but she somehow trusted Poe to make everything be all right. She barely knew him but she felt as though she knew him in all the important ways.

He would watch over Finn. He would never let anything happen to him.

“He’ll be okay,” Poe said, as though he was convincing himself as much as he was reassuring Rey.

But this was the one thing Rey was most sure of. Finn would be okay. “I know,” she said, and she smiled at Poe. “I know.”

-

Rey spent weeks on Ahch-To, and then those weeks stretched into a month, and then two. Communication with the Resistance was shaky over such a long distance and without any actual civilization on Ahch-To but she was able to transmit a few messages back and forth over the _Falcon_ ’s systems, with some help from R2-D2. She wished she could have seen Finn’s face but it was enough to know that he was okay, that he’d woken up, that he was fine, he was healing.

Poe was taking good care of him, just as he had promised. Rey thought maybe Poe was the sort of person who always kept his promises.

Luke wasn’t what Rey had expected. He was just this small, ordinary-looking man, clearly tired of the weight that came with being Luke Skywalker, but he was kind to her, and he laughed easily. He didn’t look much like a myth. He didn’t act like one, either.

He made terrible tea and was an even worse cook. Quite frankly sometimes Rey was amazed that he had survived so long without poisoning himself. Or starving rather than sit through one more barely edible meal - and this was saying a lot, coming from Rey. She knew a thing or two about surviving on druk you didn’t actually want to eat.

He did, however, tell amazing stories and he had a subtle sense of humor. He was gentle, not like the formidable warrior she had thought he would be, though she soon saw evidence of his not inconsiderable skills in that area. He saw the best in people. 

Maybe that had been the problem with Kylo Ren.

When Rey brought Luke down the rocky incline to see Chewbacca, she watched the two of them approach each other with mild trepidation, suddenly worried about what would happen. She knew what a Wookiee’s temper could be like. How close were Luke and Chewie, really? Would Chewie blame Luke for Han? Had this been a terrible idea?

But Chewie was embracing him, Luke getting engulfed in the Wookiee’s long arms. Luke buried his face against Chewie’s fur and Rey could feel the emotion radiating out from the two of them, the love, the loss, the aching sadness, the regret for what had passed.

She needn’t have worried.

On Ahch-To, Rey learned about the Force and the Jedi and the Dark Side. She learned a lot about Luke, and Leia, and Han. She learned about herself, too, about her own strength, about the part of herself that had been locked away until Kylo Ren tried to break her. She even came close to learning how to swim, dipping her toes in the choppy seas, until Chewie remarked that there were maybe better places for it and Luke wryly pointed out that between a Wookiee, a droid, and a man who had grown up on Tatooine, she wouldn’t have much back-up if she floundered.

“Maybe Finn can teach me,” Rey said. It would be something to look forward to. If Finn knew how to swim. Did Finn know how to swim?

She would have to ask him.

On Ahch-To, for the first time, Rey felt like she had found somewhere she belonged, just as Maz had told her she would. Luke seemed to fill this empty hole inside of her, this need for acceptance, for guidance, for kindness.

Rey loved Ahch-To.

She missed Finn.

When Luke told her it was time, she was ready to leave.

-

Returning to the Resistance was more jarring than Rey had anticipated. She had been so focused on seeing Finn again that she hadn’t stopped to think how different it would all be, away from the serenity of Ahch-To. People everywhere, constant noise and motion and bustle.

She hadn’t stopped to think about how Finn would be different.

Not that he had changed, exactly. He was still Finn, he was still the same brave, kind, funny, loyal man Rey had met on Jakku. But Rey had been away for months and in the meantime Finn had become a fully-fledged member of the Resistance. He had friends Rey didn’t know and he had routines; he belonged there.

And he had Poe. 

While Rey had been gone, apparently Poe had become Finn’s other favorite person. Maybe he had been before, too, actually, but regardless, he certainly was now. 

Not that there was anything wrong with that. Poe was nice. Rey was grateful to him for having taken care of Finn while he recovered, while Rey had been unable to be with him. Finn was an amazing person with a big heart and he deserved to have friends. Rey was happy for him, she was.

It was just… different, that was all. Rey had been flung into this adventure with Finn, into this whole new world, and she had maybe latched onto him a bit. But now things were different, their lives were different. Rey had Luke and apparently Finn had Poe.

She just wished that sometimes she could go in to Finn’s quarters to talk to him and he would actually be alone. (Of course, the fact that Finn’s quarters actually were Poe’s quarters, too, only made it all worse.)

Rey mentioned this to Luke once, sort of off-handedly as she was leaving him, and he quirked a smile at her and said, “I think that’s what they call jealousy.”

“I’m not jealous,” Rey said immediately because that sounded horrid. Jealous. Like she thought Finn was a possession of hers who couldn’t do anything she didn’t want him to.

“But you wish Finn would spend more time with you than with Poe.”

“Well, yes. I suppose.”

Luke wasn’t laughing at her but he did look amused. “Are you, er, interested in Finn?”

Rey narrowed her eyes. “Interested how?”

“Um. In a romantic sense.”

Rey couldn’t help the undignified snort that came out of her. “No! No, he’s… I mean, he’s Finn. He’s my friend. I love him,” she said, stumbling slightly over the words but realizing she meant them. “He’s important to me. But I don’t think of him like that. I mean, I don’t think I do?”

Rey had never thought of anyone like that. How would she know? She thought about Finn a lot. She thought about things she wanted to tell him, stories, things she thought would make him smile. She enjoyed spending time with him. She trusted him more than anyone else. She knew he was nice to look at; she wasn’t blind. 

Did that mean she was interested in him? 

She didn’t particularly want to kiss him, though. The idea made her feel faintly uncomfortable, like kissing a brother. Or at least, she imagined so, considering she didn’t actually have a brother.

Luke was talking again, jarring Rey out of her thoughts. “How does Finn feel?”

“How would I know?”

“Do you think Finn is interested in Poe? Is that the problem? Are you afraid they’re going to push you out?”

“No!” Rey exclaimed. “No, I never…” The idea had never occurred to her.

But _did_ Finn want to be with Poe? It would explain a lot. Rey had been gone a long time. How would she know?

“I have to go,” she muttered, and left Luke standing there on his own.

-

Settling the issue was easy. There was only one course of action ahead of her, Rey reasoned.

She found Finn outside the armory. “Are you in love with Poe?” Rey demanded.

“What? No!” Finn was looking at her like she’d grown another head.

“Oh. Okay, then,” Rey said, feeling stupid. This conversation had been less awkward in her head.

“Rey, what’s the matter? Why would you ask me that?”

“No reason.”

“Rey.”

“What? I was just curious, that’s all.”

“Odd thing to be curious about,” Finn said, though he let it go.

Rey couldn’t quite let it go herself, though. She found herself thinking about Finn and Poe in odd moments, found herself watching them interact. Was there something there?

She believed Finn, of course. He wouldn’t lie to her. Was it possible that he didn’t realize himself, though? Or was it possible that Poe was in love with Finn?

Yes, Rey thought, looking back on what she had observed. Yes, it was certainly possible.

The thing with Poe was, what you saw was what you got. He was open and unpretentious, free with his words and with his emotions. Poe wasn’t a person to hide. 

That should have made it easy to figure out whether he was in love with Finn. You would think.

But it wasn’t easy. The problem, Rey discovered, was that Poe was as friendly and kind to the least important person on this base, to every last astromech, as he was to General Organa or to his closest friends. Or to Finn.

It was almost annoying. How could a person be that cheerful all the time? How could a person always have time for everyone, always treat them like they were the most important person in the room?

And he smiled all the damn time.

Unfortunately Rey couldn’t just come out and ask Poe if he was in love with Finn. There was, however, someone she could ask.

“Beebee,” Rey said, dropping down until she was eye level with the droid. “Is Poe in love with Finn?”

BB-8 emitted a sharp noise of surprise and then informed Rey that Poe thought very highly of Finn but was not, in fact, in love with him.

“Are you sure?”

Obviously affronted, BB-8 said that if Poe were in love with anybody, he would be the first to know.

“Hmm,” Rey murmured, though she didn’t disagree. She listened to BB-8’s inquiry and then said, “Just wondering, that’s all.”

BB-8 asked if Rey was in love with Finn.

“No! Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

Then he asked if she was in love with Poe.

Rey laughed, startled. “Of course not! No! Why would I be in love with Poe? I’m not in love with anybody!”

BB-8 uttered what was the binary equivalent of an unconcerned shrug and then said that if Rey were in love with Poe, that would be okay, and BB-8 would be entirely supportive of them.

“Don’t go getting any ideas,” Rey warned the droid before walking away. “Stars,” she muttered to herself. 

Perhaps talking to BB-8 had been a poor decision after all. The last thing she needed was a droid with a propensity for matchmaking messing about. Or for BB-8 to tell Poe what she had said. Oh, blast, she should have thought about that. BB-8 was as bad at keeping secrets from Poe as Poe was from him.

Rey never truly wished to go back to Jakku, but she did sometimes long for its simplicity.

-

Even if no one was in love with anybody else, Finn still seemed to want to spend all of his free time with Poe, but also with Rey, which meant that more often than not, Rey was hanging out with not just Finn, but with Poe as well.That was okay, she supposed. It wasn’t that Rey had anything against Poe, particularly. He was cheerful and easy-going and a bit dorky, and Rey respected his competence as well as his obvious devotion to the Resistance, to General Organa, and to his friends.

But, okay. Maybe she _was_ a little jealous. Only a tiny bit.

At least Poe was still General Organa’s go-to pilot so he was constantly busy, going to meetings, running missions, repairing ships, orienting new recruits… It meant that Poe wasn’t _always_ around. But he was around enough.

As he was right now, sliding his back down against the wall to sit next to Rey while she sketched, just outside the boundary of the base. She pretended not to notice him. 

“You’re good at that,” Poe said, watching her, because he was incapable of being quiet.

“Thanks,” Rey said, because it would be rude to ignore him.

“I’ve been talking to Beebee-Ate.” 

Rey felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Blast. Whatever BB-8 had been telling Poe, it couldn’t be good.

“I just thought maybe it seemed like you don’t want me around?” Poe continued. “I mean, I thought we’d gotten along pretty well, before, but lately I’ve just felt… And Beebee said you’re normally pretty friendly with everyone, so I thought maybe it was just me? Did I do something wrong? Because whatever it was, please tell me so I can apologize and not do it anymore and hopefully make it up to you. But maybe you just don’t like me very much? That would stink. But also I was thinking, and this was because of Beebee mostly, maybe you’re upset because of Finn, you think I’m intruding, but really I just want us all to be--”

“Poe,” Rey said, looking at him rather than her flimsi.

“Yeah?”

“You’re, uh, you’re babbling.”

“Right,” he said, looking chagrined. “Sorry.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Rey said, because that much was true.

Poe seemed momentarily relieved but that soon faded into resigned disappointment. “So, you just don’t like me, then.”

Rey imagined that must be an unfamiliar sensation for Poe. He was clearly the sort of person who made friends easily, good-natured and affable and effortlessly charming.

“Not exactly,” Rey said, hedging. 

“It’s kind of an either-or thing, generally.”

“I don’t _not_ like you.”

“So you like me? Because a double negative equals a positive?”

Rey blew out a breath. “You’re so annoying.”

Poe laughed. “Guilty as charged. I’m just… I’m confused. You seemed okay with me before, and if I haven’t done anything to upset you, and if you sort of like me, then, what’s the problem? Why do I always feel like you’re outwardly tolerating my presence but inwardly picturing bashing my head into something?”

Startled, Rey found herself laughing now. “Well, I never quite got that far.” 

“Consider me relieved.”

“I think… I think I was just surprised, that’s all,” Rey admitted. “I came back and everything was different. Finn was already settled and I…”

“You didn’t fit,” Poe said. “Or at least, you felt like you didn’t.”

“Yes.” Rey stared ahead of her. “It was so easy for him, but I’d thought… I’d thought we would do it together. Only I had to leave without him and when I came back he didn’t need me.”

“That’s not exactly true. He talked about you so much while you were away. He missed you. He’ll always need you.”

“Maybe.” Rey hoped so, anyway.

“The thing is, Rey, you were gone a long time. It _wasn’t_ easy for Finn. The Resistance is not the First Order, let me tell you. You were just gone for the hard part.”

Rey didn’t know why that made her feel better, but it did, knowing that she wasn’t the only one struggling. It was probably a bit selfish.

Poe hesitated as if he wasn’t sure he should say what he was thinking about saying. Being Poe, of course, he ended up saying it. “Finn had help. We can be there for you, too.”

“We?” Rey teased.

Poe’s smile was easy and unself-conscious. “Okay, me. I meant me. But I’m not the only one.” He paused. “You know you do fit here, even if it doesn’t feel that way to you. You fit.”

“Thanks,” Rey said, with a lot more self-consciousness than Poe ever seemed to have. She was flushing, looking back down at her flimsi.

Nudging her in the side, Poe said, “You wanna go get a tutorial on X-wings?”

Rey raised her gaze and blinked at him. “What?”

“I’ll show you how they work, give you a quick lesson.”

“I already know how to fly, you know.”

“I know. But you’ve never flown an X-wing.”

“I think I could figure it out.”

“I have no doubt, but honestly I’d rather not have your first time in an X-wing be when we’re under attack.”

Rey remembered at odd moments that Poe wasn’t just Poe. He was Commander Dameron, Black Leader, and Leia trusted no pilot here as much as she trusted him. 

Poe stood up, offering her his hand. “What do you say?”

“Sounds like an opportunity I’d be crazy to pass up, learning from the great Poe Dameron himself,” Rey said, tongue-in-cheek, accepting his hand up.

He laughed and said, “I maybe know a thing or two but I think calling me a great anything is probably an exaggeration.”

“A great big dork?”

“All right, I’ll give you that one.”

Black One was out on the tarmac and Poe led Rey over, letting her climb the ladder first so she could sit in the cockpit. Poe went up after, settling himself up on the side so he could lean in and point out various knobs and switches and et cetera on the console. His enthusiasm about his ship was infectious and he taught without ever being patronizing. He smiled a lot and clearly respected that Rey knew her way around a ship, even if she had never been in an X-wing specifically.

Rey looked at Poe as he sat there on the edge of his ship with his legs hanging over the side, the loose collar of his shirt open beneath his jacket, the breeze catching in his hair and ruffling it. She thought to herself, _no wonder Snap teases him about being the Resistance’s poster boy,_ and had to stifle a giggle.

Perhaps unsuccessfully, as Poe said, “What?”

“Just thinking about how great you’d look on a recruitment poster. We’d have First Order troopers defecting left and right.”

Poe groaned. “Not you, too!”

“I could draw one for you, if you like. Maybe show it to the general.”

“That’s it, let’s go,” Poe said, waving his hand in a ‘get out of there’ gesture. “Lesson’s over, let’s fly.”

Rey felt a grin stretch across her face. “Little game of one-upmanship, flyboy?”

“Bet I can show you a thing or two.”

“You’re on,” Rey said, climbing down the ladder so she could get her own ship.

Turned out they could both show each other a few things, and when they landed again, Rey was happy and laughing and Poe was excitedly running over to her, still holding his helmet, saying, “You have got to show me how you did that!”

“And spill all my secrets?” Rey said, pretending to be appalled.

Poe’s smile was a tad wicked. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?”

Rey’s brain momentarily went somewhere it had no place being and she felt her cheeks heat up. _Stars, Rey,_ she said to herself. 

“Deal,” she said aloud.

-

While Rey had been on Ahch-To with Luke learning about the Force, Finn had been learning, too. Like how to play sabacc, apparently. Poe had taught him and now Finn was teaching Rey. They were sitting at a small table in what was used as a general recreational area on base, where people gathered off-duty to relax. Rey was sitting with her cards across from Finn, with Poe and Jessika Pava looking on.

Rey liked Jess. She was fun and had a good sense of humor, and she had this hero worship thing for Luke that was sort of adorable. She and Poe teased each other relentlessly but with an obvious underlying affection.

“Stand,” Finn said, and Rey examined her cards more intently. They weren’t actually playing for credits and technically it was more of a practice game, but damn if Rey didn’t want to win anyway.

Poe was having a hard time sitting still, continually getting up and wandering around the table so he could look at Finn’s and Rey’s hands. Now he was bending over behind Rey, close enough that she could smell whatever product he used in his hair and feel his breath on her skin. She tried to ignore him.

Rey began to reach for a card but Poe said, “No, you don’t want to do that, you--”

“Oh, get off,” Rey said, pushing him. “I know how to play!”

“Not very well,” Finn said, grinning.

“Like you’re any better?” Rey retorted.

“Let the girl play, Dameron,” Jess said. “You’re just getting in the way. Not to mention you’re all but giving Finn her cards.”

“Thank you,” Rey said.

Poe raised his hands. “Sorry, sorry, just trying to be helpful.”

“Yes, you’re always so helpful, even when people don’t want your help.”

“Okay, point taken, Rey does not ever need help.” He had straightened up now, moving away from Rey to return to his own chair.

“I didn’t say that,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Poe likes to be dramatic,” Jess said, smirking.

“It is kinda true, though,” Finn said. “I mean, you’ve definitely never actually needed any help every time I’ve gotten all prepared for a big rescue, Rey.”

“But you are very cute when you rush in like a big hero,” Rey said, echoing Finn’s grin from across the table. Hoping Poe was suitably distracted by the conversation, Rey elected to stand rather than take that card she had been intending on. Couldn’t hurt to listen to advice just once, right?

When she looked at Poe out of the corner of her eye, though, he was smiling faintly. Busted.

Rey finished with a score of twenty-one. Finn had twenty. In the midst of her jubilation Rey couldn’t help but look over at Poe and his big smile. It wasn’t that he was crowing over the fact she’d won in part because of his advice, he was simply happy for her; Rey could see it in his face. An easy joy that he had helped her in even a small way, and that she had trusted him enough to allow him to do so. 

He winked at her, and Rey’s stomach felt like it was doing a tiny flip. She flushed and turned back to Finn, who was cheekily trying to claim credit for Rey’s victory due to his superior teaching skills.

“Then maybe Poe should take the credit because he taught you,” Rey countered, and let herself smile at Poe.

-

At first, Poe had held a very clear distinction in Rey’s mind. He was Finn’s friend Poe. She wasn’t entirely sure when that distinction fell away, when he started being her friend Poe.

Possibly it had been while they were up in the air flying X-wings, or when they were bonding over starship maintenance, or perhaps the third or fourth time he brought her extra food from the mess hall.

Poe would help her make repairs on the _Millennium Falcon_ without being asked; he would just invite himself over and suddenly he was pointing things out from over her shoulder, his breath against her ear, or handing her tools without her even having asked for them yet. He would be standing there cleaning gunk out of the engine, singing under his breath, and Rey would realize he’d been there ten minutes already and she’d barely noticed.

Chewie kind of liked him, even. Chewie clearly appreciated Poe’s appreciation for the _Falcon_ as well as his healthy respect for Han and for Chewbacca himself. Poe didn’t comprehend Shyriiwook very well but they seemed to understand each other well enough regardless.

Honestly Rey probably shouldn’t have been surprised by it. Poe made friends so easily and Chewie was a good judge of character. 

All of this was fine. Poe had become someone whose presence Rey didn’t mind; whose presence, in fact, Rey enjoyed. He actually liked listening to her babble about ships and engineering, unlike Finn, who found the topic boring. (Boring! Pffft.)

So Rey couldn’t quite explain why she ended up so irritated at him one afternoon. Later she tried to attribute it to the uncharacteristic heat, though of course that wasn’t much of an excuse for someone who had grown up on a desert planet. Rey wasn’t normally bothered by a bit of sweat. 

But Poe was crowding her, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hair curling in the humidity. He was reaching around her, showing her a valve, and the sudden unusual closeness of him startled her, made her stomach squirm as though it were full of bugs.

“Don’t you have your own ship you could be fixing?” she said through gritted teeth.

Seeming equally startled by her tone, Poe drew back. “Just thought you could use a hand, that’s all.”

“Well, I couldn’t, so, you can go. Chewie’s here.”

“Sorry. I was--”

“I don’t need your help. I can do it myself.”

“Sorry,” Poe said again, backing away from her. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I only… Well, you let me know if you do need anything. I’ll stop bothering you.”

Rey didn’t bother watching him leave, focusing her efforts on the _Falcon_. Though she didn’t want to look up, the heavy weight of Chewbacca’s disapproval eventually defeated her.

Chewie was staring at her, his opinion clear. When a Wookiee thought you were overreacting, well, you had definitely overreacted. Rey felt somewhat ashamed. “I didn’t need his help,” she insisted. “I can do this on my own.”

When Chewie responded that the point was she didn’t have to do things on her own anymore, Rey said, “That’s what I have you for.”

He remained unconvinced by that logic, reminding her that having one friend didn’t preclude her from having others. Everyone had something different to offer.

“Says someone with one friend,” Rey said unkindly, regretting it as soon as the words came out. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

 _Han was not my only friend_ , Chewie said, _and neither are you._

“I know,” Rey said. “I just… He’s so…” She didn’t know why Poe was so confusing and he made her feel so… She didn’t even know what. It was easier not to think about it.

Chewie rumbled at her and Rey muttered, “Shut up, I do not.”

She was blushing, she could feel it, and Chewie was laughing. She ignored him.

-

Rey’s childhood had been lacking in a few normalities, to say the least, as had Finn’s. Such as, holofilms. Poe was determined to make up for the fact that neither Finn nor Rey had been in a position to watch many of what he termed classics, and so in the evenings when they were free, they often piled onto his bed and watched projections of Poe’s favorite holofilms.

Rey had her doubts about his taste but it was fun all the same. Even if she didn’t precisely enjoy the particular film they were watching, she liked spending time with Finn and Poe.

Currently they were watching something that hovered between suspense and horror. It was actually rather good, Rey thought, though occasionally hard to follow. Especially because of the continual interruptions on the part of her companions.

For instance, just now Finn shrieked, actually shrieked, which made Poe burst into laughter.

“It’s not funny!” Finn protested. “That was horrifying, I was not expecting that, were you expecting that?”

“I’ve seen this film four times, so yeah, I was expecting that.”

“Well, excuse me, Mister I’ve Seen and Done Everything, I’m So Cool.”

“That’s not what I said, now you’re exaggerating. You do that a lot, doesn’t he, Rey?”

“Yes, and you talk too much, especially when I’m trying to watch this,” Rey said.

“Pardon me,” Poe said in an approximation of Rey’s accent, and then all three of them gasped almost in unison. Poe grabbed Finn’s leg. “Okay, that part gets me every time, I admit.”

Finn was too busy staring at the holofilm to respond. He didn’t even seem to notice that Poe was still holding onto his thigh.

Rey noticed, though. She was staring, actually, her attention completely diverted away from the film. 

Poe was always doing things like that. Touching people. Only he never touched her. Sometimes it seemed like he was going to but he always caught himself, aborting the movement in what had to have been a conscious thought process. He rarely even let himself close enough, now, not after the incident at the _Falcon._

Like right now, they were all three of them sitting on the bed up against the wall, and Poe was slumping against Finn, but he was carefully angled entirely away from Rey.

She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to be touching her. Poe was… he wasn’t… 

Rey didn’t mind when Finn inserted himself into her space. She found herself reaching for him sometimes, and she liked knowing he was there, liked sitting beside him on her bed with his knee touching hers, or resting her head on his shoulder after a long day training with Luke.

It wasn’t like that with Poe. Rey didn’t know why. She didn’t know what made her different to Poe, why he would lay his head in Jessika Pava’s lap and let her play with his hair while he told stories, or why he would clutch Snap Wexley’s shoulder as he doubled over in laughter, but never her. Never Rey.

Rey could scoot closer right now. She could invade Poe’s space if he wouldn’t invade hers.

She kept looking at his hand, now resting lightly on top of Finn’s leg. He had strong-looking hands, short fingers, tanned skin, blunt fingernails. Rey wondered how his hands would feel on her skin, if his palms were rough and calloused, if his touch would be gentle. She looked at his profile, his long nose and the lines by his eyes. She wondered if his hair was as soft as it looked.

Her breathing had quickened faintly and Rey made herself look away, made herself look at the holofilm. What was she doing? 

She scrambled off the bed, obviously startling the two men. They were staring at her. “I need to use the ‘fresher,” Rey mumbled because she definitely couldn’t say, _I need to go walk around for a while so I stop thinking about Poe’s hands on me._

“We can pause it until you get back,” Poe offered.

“Don’t bother; I don’t know what’s going on anyway. Like I said, you talk too much,” Rey said, and tried not to think about the way Poe’s mouth pursed like she had actually hurt his feelings.

Poe never cared when Rey got sharp with him. It was the foundation of their relationship. He didn’t care.

Rey felt sort of crummy anyway. It was her own fault that she hadn’t been paying attention, too busy looking at Poe’s dumb face and his dumb hands.

She walked down the hallway outside Poe and Finn’s quarters, not going anywhere in particular, and tried to stop thinking about Poe. She wished she knew what she wanted. It bothered her that Poe treated her differently but she didn’t know why, she didn’t know what she _wanted._ Did she just want him to be easy and familiar with her like he was with everyone else? Or did she actually want…

No. That was ridiculous. Right? It was ridiculous, she had already decided it was. Rey didn’t want… Maybe she was curious. It was all right to be curious. Objectively speaking, Poe was pleasant to look at, and he had nice hands, so Rey could be curious. That was all. Nothing weird about that.

Absolutely nothing at all.

“Rey?”

Startled, Rey spun around to see Jess approaching from the other end of the hallway. “Hello,” Rey said, hoping the heat she felt rising in her cheeks wasn’t as clearly visible as she feared it was. Jess couldn’t know Rey had been thinking about Poe and even if she could, it wasn’t like it had been anything _bad._ Right? Right.

“Thought you were having holofilm night with Finn and Poe.”

“We were, I just… just needed to use the ‘fresher.”

“You’re going the wrong way, then,” Jess said, not quite laughing. She pointed. “’Fresher’s that way, remember?”

“Right,” Rey muttered. “You know, I don’t need it after all.”

With more concern, Jess asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Yes, fine, absolutely.”

Jess was regarding Rey curiously but she only said, “Okay. Well, enjoy your film.”

“Will do,” Rey said, fleeing. So stupid. Ugh, she was so stupid.

And now she had to go back into Poe and Finn’s room before they started wondering whether she’d gotten sick or something. Unfortunately she was no better off than she had been when she’d left. 

Maybe the only thing that mattered was that Rey wanted to be close to Poe like she was to Finn. Maybe the ‘why’ of it all didn’t matter. 

Poe and Finn were talking when Rey went back in, though they stopped abruptly at Rey’s entrance. “We paused it for you anyway,” Poe told her. “We can go back a few scenes too, if you want?”

Rey felt a stab of regret for her words earlier. “Thanks, but that’s okay. I might have been exaggerating a little myself.”

As casually as she could, which probably wasn’t casual at all, but she could hope, right? Anyway, Rey casually sat back down on the bed, closer to Poe this time, pressing against his side and leaning her head on his shoulder.

She felt him stiffen, in horror or surprise or something else, Rey had no idea, but then he relaxed. He moved his arm out from between them and draped it behind Rey’s back instead.

Rey bit her lip so she wouldn’t smile, internally congratulating herself, proud of her own nerve. Then she made the mistake of looking across Poe at Finn, who was grinning like a loon. He gave her a thumb’s up.

Rey wished she could have pinched him without Poe noticing. 

-

Rey could sense Luke’s presence as she came out of her meditation, the calm shape he made in her mind. She opened her eyes to his familiar worn face. “Hello, Master.”

“Rey,” he said. 

She liked the way Luke said her name. He always sounded so fond.

“You’re getting better at this,” he said, sitting down across from her on the floor. 

“I can feel everything,” Rey said eagerly. “The flow of the Force through the lifeforms on base, through the animals outside, the plants. I can feel how everything is connected.” 

“And yourself?”

“That part’s harder,” Rey admitted, chewing on her lip. She had a hard time articulating it even in her own head, but it was like she… She was formless, conflicting pieces that didn’t quite fit into one being. Luke seemed so central and whole and perfect but Rey couldn’t see her own place in anything. She felt like she couldn’t grasp her own person even as she could see the pattern of life in everything else.

Luke was watching her, not in judgment or even in concern, but simply with a desire to hear what she was saying, to really hear it. “Do you still feel isolated here?”

Rey shook her head. “No. It’s not that, it’s… I know this is where I belong but I… I’m not sure I know who I am. I don’t know if that makes sense. There’s still this part of me that I feel is blocked, my history, where I came from, and I feel like I can’t move forward without going back first. Except I don’t know where to go back to. Maybe I never will.” Not Jakku. Jakku had held none of the answers; Rey knew that now.

For a moment Rey felt this odd sort of spasm within Luke’s being, this conflict of emotion in his mind that he was projecting outwards, but it was gone so quickly Rey was certain she must have imagined it. What he said was, “Perhaps you should stop looking outward for answers. You’re here, Rey, everything that matters is inside you,” he said, gently touching his fist to her chest, over where her heart was. 

“I suppose you’re right,” Rey said, though that aching feeling of something being missing still lingered in her mind.

Maybe it always would.


	2. Chapter 2

“Rey,” someone was calling, and Rey turned around, knowing it was Poe.

He jogged towards her, dressed in sweatpants and one of the sleeveless shirts he wore under his flightsuit. Maybe he was going for a run.

Except he said, “Are you busy? Want to do a favor for me?”

“Depends on the favor,” Rey said.

“Nothing bad,” he promised. “I just wondered if you wanted to spar with me.”

Rey considered him with some surprise. While she knew Poe was entirely competent with a blaster and he kept in good shape, he didn’t train like she did, or like Finn did. Poe was at his most dangerous when he was in the air.

A sparring session with Rey was destined to end up with Poe covered in bruises, so she said as much. “The favor you want is for me to knock you on your ass?”

“Only way to improve is to compete with someone better than you.”

“Finn’s better than you. He’ll kick your ass the same as I will, just not as fast. You might get more out of it.”

“I’d rather get my ass kicked by you,” Poe said with a grin.

Rey couldn’t stop her slow, reluctant smile. Poe was really something. Exactly what that something was she wasn’t sure yet, but he was definitely something. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said, and they set off for the base’s gym.

“Weapons?” Rey asked when they were inside. “No weapons?”

“You pick.”

“No weapons,” Rey decided. She didn’t want to embarrass him _too_ badly.

At first they were just testing each other, getting an idea of how the other moved. Then Poe’s strikes became more focused. Rey was lighter and quicker than he was and she ducked under a punch, spinning around and kicking in the back of his knee. Poe grunted, losing his footing and automatically sinking down. Rey mimed the kick she would have struck at his head if this had been a real fight and then stood there looking down at him.

“Ow,” Poe said, gazing up at her.

“Sorry, that was a bit cruel for our first go. Again?”

“I’d tell you not to hold back but that clearly won’t be an issue for you.” Poe accepted the hand Rey offered him and got back up to his feet.

They circled each other again. If Rey could say anything about Poe it was that he adapted quickly. She could see him trying to figure out how to compensate for Rey’s speed and agility and she was actually a bit proud of him when she went for his knee again but got thwarted as he darted away. 

He still ended up on his back but it took longer the second time.

The third time it took even longer and maybe Poe had been right; he did seem to be getting something out of this, more than Rey had expected. She straddled his hips with her forearm across his throat.

Poe bucked up against her but couldn’t dislodge her. Rey applied more pressure to his throat, indicating what she would have done if he were a real opponent.

“I could show you some techniques for getting back up again,” Rey offered.

“I’m fine here, actually,” Poe said.

As he spoke it seemed to sink in how close they were, Rey leaning in until she could feel Poe’s breath against her face, the racing of his pulse in his neck. Crouched as she was on top of Poe, it was only too easy to imagine the sort of picture they presented.

“You’re enjoying this!” Rey realized, easing up on Poe’s throat.

Even Rey knew that the way Poe was biting his lip was meant to be flirtatious. “Maybe a little bit.”

Rey rolled her eyes and stood up, leaving Poe there on the mat. “Unbelievable,” she said.

“So does that mean you’re done kicking my ass? Because I feel like we were getting somewhere.”

Not quite managing to hide her grin, Rey settled into her stance again, gesturing Poe up. “I’m not even close to being done, Dameron.”

-

Poe returned from a mission with an ugly bruise on his temple and a scab along his hairline. When Rey first saw him walking towards her he was holding his arm across his middle awkwardly, reminiscent of a subconscious protective gesture.

“You look terrible,” Rey informed him, reaching up towards his bruise.

Flinching away from her, Poe said, “Thanks a lot. Couldn’t I even get a ‘how are you, Poe?’ first?”

Rey’s fingers hovered by Poe’s head for a few seconds before she lowered her hand back down. “How are you, Poe?” she asked pointedly.

He gave her a lop-sided smile. “You should see the other guy?”

Rey rolled her eyes. “Was the other guy a rancor? Because that’s how it looks.”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Poe insisted, though when Rey gently prodded at his middle he hissed in discomfort.

“Do you have a broken rib? You should be in the med center; you should be in a bacta tank.”

“Only bruised. No need to waste any bacta.”

“It would be far from a waste.”

“Well, when you’re in there getting proper medical treatment, let me know. Maybe then I’ll consider it.”

Rey conceded his point. Though she still didn’t like it.

More gently Poe added, “I’ve been looked over, don’t worry. Finn insisted. I’m fine, honestly. I mean, I’m sore as hell and I’m temporarily grounded, but I’ll survive.”

“You’re fine,” Rey said, arching an eyebrow. “Because no one ever says that and lies.”

“Of course not,” Poe said, feigning ignorance. “I mean, I certainly wouldn’t.”

“Right,” Rey said, knowing Poe could hear her disbelief. “You’re going to go lie down at least.”

“Doesn’t sound like I have the option not to.”

“You don’t.” Rey carefully put her arm around Poe’s waist so she could steer him towards his quarters.

She was only moderately surprised when he let her do it without complaint.

-

A grounded Poe was an annoying Poe, Rey quickly discovered. While he didn’t lack for things to do around the base, he was clearly unhappy not being able to fly at all. In the immediate aftermath of his injury he was even banned from maintenance work.

A Poe who could neither go up in Black One nor fix her up was not a fun Poe to be around.

“Seriously, can he move in with you?” Finn was saying. “He’s driving me crazy.”

Rey folded her arms over her chest. “So your solution is to foist him on me so he can drive me crazy instead?”

“Well, yeah.”

“There is a flaw in your logic.”

“Is there? Are you sure? ‘Cause I don’t see it.” 

“He’s not moving in with me. He’s your friend.”

“Oh, I get it, he’s my friend when he’s annoying but when he’s getting extra pastries from the kitchen he’s your friend?”

Rey’s mouth twitched. “Exactly. Besides, it was his room first, you can’t just kick him out.”

Finn regarded her hopefully. “So could I move in with you instead?” 

“Stop it,” Rey said, shoving him, but she was laughing.

A couple more weeks passed and Poe’s attitude improved as he felt better. He was still antsy, banned from the skies, but he had been cleared for most everything else and spent a correspondingly large amount of time in the hangar bay, fixing up starships. Finn stopped begging Rey to change their living arrangements, which was a plus.

It was especially a plus when Rey had a nightmare so intense that she woke herself up, crying out and thrashing in her bed, sweat matting her hair to the back of her neck. She sat there, breathing hard, thanking anyone who had had a hand in putting her in a room to herself. 

She closed her eyes and saw it again, the darkness, the red, the -

She opened her eyes and knew she would get no more sleep.

In the morning she told Luke. “It was a vision, wasn’t it?” she asked him. “From the Force?”

He nodded, concern evident in the lines of his face. 

“What should I do about it?”

“What do you want to do about it?”

Rey frowned. Apparently this was going to be one of those times where Luke decided giving her a straight answer wasn’t in his job description. She thought he might have gotten that from the Jedi Master who taught him. “I feel like I need to follow it.”

Luke was quiet for a moment, expression giving away nothing of his thoughts. “I won’t stop you.”

“You’re not going to tell me I’m not ready? That I could get hurt?”

“Would that change your mind?”

“No.”

Luke smiled at her. “Then I guess it’s settled.”

Chewie had taken the _Millennium Falcon_ on a supply run so Rey borrowed one of the fleet’s X-wings. She hugged Finn goodbye and met Poe in the hangar bay, talking as she ran a last minute check on her supplies. BB-8 was chirping cheerfully, glad to be getting off-base. Poe’s injury had meant that the droid wasn’t seeing any action either, so Poe had been happy to loan him to Rey for the duration. “No better support anywhere in the galaxy,” he’d said, to which BB-8 had crooned in agreement.

“Tatooine, huh? One desert planet wasn’t enough for you?” Poe asked.

“Maybe I miss the sand.”

“Bring some back for Finn. He has so much nostalgia for Jakku.”

Rey snorted. “He flinches every time he even hears the name.”

“I know. I like to say it sometimes, just to get that reaction,” Poe said, eyes sparkling in mischief. “Mmm, Jakku, great place. Almost died there. Still, couldn’t you have a Force dream about somewhere with a beach, maybe?”

“I’ll put in a request,” Rey said, shutting the storage bay and then snapping her fingers. “Damn, I forgot to grab a helmet.”

“No worries,” Poe said. Before Rey could register what he was even doing he had scrambled up the ladder to Black One, grabbed his own helmet out of the seat, and then climbed back down, jogging back over to Rey. He was only wincing a little bit as he plopped the helmet down on Rey’s head. “Suits you,” he said.

“Now I know you say that to everyone.”

“Only when I mean it.”

Rey was grateful that the helmet hid her blush. The way Poe was looking at her was making her stomach do this uncomfortable squirming thing so she said, “Stinks in here. When’s the last time you cleaned it?”

“Sorry, cleaning out the inside of my helmet isn’t high on my list of priorities,” Poe said, not seeming bothered in the slightest. He patted the top of the helmet and somehow it was only sweet rather than patronizing. “Better get going. Stay safe, all right? May the Force be with you.”

Shaking off a sudden desire to squeeze Poe tightly to herself, to take the helmet off so she could tuck her face in his neck and breathe in the scent of his skin, Rey hurriedly climbed up the ladder to her ship. What was that? What was she doing?

“Don’t miss me too much,” she called down to Poe, proud of the lack of a tremor in her voice.

As Rey got settled in the cockpit, she almost thought she heard Poe murmur, “Can’t make any promises,” as he moved away.

But that couldn’t have been right. 

-

The old homestead was little more than a ruin. It had clearly been scorched by fire and as Rey walked through she could see the evidence of it lingering still, the burn marks beneath the scattered sand.

It was hard to imagine that Luke had lived here once, that he had been a little boy playing in these rooms, that an aunt who loved him had cooked him meals in this room that once was a kitchen. BB-8 rolled after her, beeping a question.

“I know, Beebee. There’s nothing here anymore. I just wanted… I just wanted to see.”

Rey brushed her hand against the wall and something flashed behind her eyes, rage, regret. She pulled her hand back and it was gone.

Kylo Ren, or Darth Vader? Perhaps it didn’t matter. Maybe she was only chasing ghosts. She only knew that she had to be here.

Outside she and BB-8 got into their loaned speeder and Rey kicked it into gear. Her next destination was a good distance away, over shifting sand and beneath the hot twin suns. It was even hotter here than Jakku.

Finn would hate it. The thought made Rey smile.

By the time Rey arrived at the little house, dusk was falling. For a moment she thought the door wouldn’t open, sand in the crevices, but with a loud crack she pushed it in. BB-8 followed, oddly silent.

The abandoned home of Obi-Wan Kenobi felt like a tomb, or perhaps a museum. The air was stale, as if no one had opened the door in decades, and that may very well have been true. Certainly no one had lived here in years. 

“What am I doing, Beebee?” Rey said. She chuckled at the droid’s answer. “Yes, that’s true. I just thought it would make a bit more sense once I got here.”

When BB-8 asked her if she actually wanted to have opened the door and found Kylo Ren waiting inside, Rey made herself seriously consider it. She had thought that was where her dream was leading her, but she was growing less and less sure. 

“I thought so,” she said. “I wanted to see him again, to…” To what? Make him pay for what he’d done? Yes. It was an unchivalrous thought but nevertheless, it was what she wanted.

Rey turned in a circle around the small living quarters, breathing in the smell of abandonment and decay. “I want answers, that’s all.”

-

Rey made a meal out of the rations she had packed and then settled down to meditate. The images from her dream kept flashing through her head, the swirling back cape, the beam of the lightsaber, the sound of screaming, blood pooling on the ground. She tried to center herself, to find the calmness Luke spoke of, to focus on the measure of her breathing. 

_She was stepping over the bodies but she couldn’t look at their faces, she couldn’t look_ -

Blowing out a breath in frustration, Rey admitted defeat. None of Luke’s teachings were helping and she knew this wasn’t going to work. This planet, this place, it had a hold on her, this pull it was exerting, but she didn’t know _why._

“Why did you lead me here?” she asked aloud.“There’s nothing here but… but sand! I’ve seen enough sand in my life!”

BB-8 trilled worriedly.

Sighing, Rey said, “It’s all right. I’m just… I’m going to sleep. I’m probably tired, that’s all.”

She found the little rounded alcove that had once been the bedroom of Obi-Wan Kenobi. The bed was still there, though the blankets were worn and a cloud of dust and sand settled in the air when Rey shook them out. Still, she lay down without complaint. She had slept in worse places.

She hoped for a dreamless night.

-

She dreamed of fire and blood, of a mop-headed boy telling himself, _don’t look back, don’t look back,_ repeating it over and over in his head. She dreamed of a little girl crying in the rain and the little girl was her.

In the morning Rey felt as though she hadn’t slept at all.

“I don’t think there’s anything else to find here,” she said to BB-8, eating a protein pack for breakfast.

He asked where they were going to go then.

“Back to where we started, I think,” she told him.

They left soon after, as Rey wanted to get their journey in before the real heat of the day set in. She paused on the threshold, looking back.

 _Rey,_ a voice whispered in her head, an echo of Takodana. She felt something, like the soothing brush of someone’s hand across her back. _Don’t be afraid. You are not alone._

“Thank you,” Rey murmured, and walked to the speeder.

The trip back to the Lars homestead went quicker than it had the day before, now that Rey already knew the way. The closer she got the more certain she was that this was where she needed to be.

She knew Kylo Ren wasn’t here, though she sensed that maybe he had been, once. Kylo Ren wasn’t the reason the Force had led her here. Whatever the reason was, she felt she would discover it inside that charred building.

As Rey walked through what remained of Luke’s childhood home, she opened herself up to the Force and all that it could show her. She felt a strange sensation that someone was following her but the presence was simply there, not threatening, different from what she had felt in Kenobi’s house. Not quite so mellow, more openly interested, and… familiar, somehow.

And sad. No, regretful. 

“Who are you?” she asked softly, but received no answer.

Instead, her head began filling with images and emotions. That mop-headed little boy, tinkering with a droid. An older boy, not the same boy, but with the same shaggy blond hair, running through the halls while a woman called after him. A young man her age with Luke’s blue eyes moving a model starship through the air and dreaming of adventure.

She saw a young man dressed like a Jedi Knight, and in her head he was saying, _I killed them all,_ his voice full of pain and fury. A woman, beautiful, frightened and sad, uncertain of how to proceed. A body wrapped in a blanket being set gently into the ground.

A bearded Jedi offering a baby to a young couple, smiling with happiness though they were afraid. Luke again, asking about his father, Luke standing outside, looking at the smoking corpses of what remained of his family, family he had loved, family he had failed, family the Empire had destroyed. 

_I want to become a Jedi like my father,_ Rey heard in her head, and then, _Not a Jedi like me. Not like me._

The place was on fire, flames licking up the walls, smoke billowing. A tall black-caped figure stood watching, watching the remnants of a life he didn’t want to remember burn away to ash. Nothing worth devoting any thought to had ever happened on this farm.

_Lies, it had been a lie, he had lied._

_The boy. The boy had lived. My son._

The boy again, _don’t look back,_ and then a boy with dark hair, afraid, dreams getting twisted in his head, false promises, _I will be like you, Grandfather,_ and then the little girl, the little girl that was Rey, screaming as they left her. 

Rey was crying and she didn’t know when it had started.

“Anakin?” she said. “Are you Anakin?”

The formless presence uttered her name, just a whisper in her head. _Rey, Rey. Don’t make my mistakes._

“I promise,” Rey said.

-

Luke met Rey soon after she landed back on the base, BB-8 burbling in good humor as he rolled off to find Poe. Rey stood before him, tired and sweaty with sand in her boots. “It had to be Tatooine,” she said.

Luke laughed lightly. “Says one desert rat to another?”

“Next time it better be a planet with a beach,” Rey said, thinking of what Poe had said. 

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

Rey hesitated and then said honestly, “I don’t know.”

The quirk of Luke’s mouth told Rey that he knew exactly what she meant. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

Though she felt a swell of gratitude, Rey knew she couldn’t do that. Not yet. She still needed to come to terms with it herself, with what she had seen, what she knew now. What she thought she knew.

“Thank you,” Rey said, hugging Luke swiftly before ducking away.

-

Later, after a long stay in the ‘fresher that Rey felt was entirely justified, she was lying across Finn’s bed while he sat at the head with his back against the wall and Poe sat at the desk, his ankle crossed over his knee. Rey was staring up at the ceiling, thoughts still a messy jumble, trying to make sense of her stay on Tatooine.

She knew Finn and Poe were curious but Rey felt unable to give them the details they wanted, instead just vaguely outlining what had happened. No Kylo Ren, no lightsabers, nothing exciting. Just Rey in the old moisture farm that used to be Luke Skywalker’s home. 

“I didn’t know you were actually searching for Kylo Ren,” Finn said. “I thought it was just some Force thing. If I’d known that I would have tried to go with you.”

“Why do you think I didn’t tell you?” Rey said, reaching over to squeeze Finn’s ankle. “Except that’s not… It was a Force thing, it was the vision, I didn’t really know what I was going after. I just knew I had to do it on my own. And I hoped…”

“You hoped you’d find Ren?” Poe suggested.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I thought the Force was leading me to Kylo Ren, but it wasn’t.”

“What was it leading you to, then?”

“Myself,” Rey said softly.

-

Knocking once on the door to General Organa’s small office, Rey heard, “Enter,” and did so.

Leia smiled at Rey as she came into the room. “Rey. What can I do for you?”

Rey interlaced her fingers behind her back. “I just… Do you have a minute? I wondered if we could talk.”

Gesturing Rey into a chair, Leia said, “You’ve got me as long as you want me. I could use a break anyway.”

“I didn’t know you took those,” Rey teased, sitting, folding her hands over her lap.

Leia’s mouth twitched. “You sound like my brother.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Depends. But I know you didn’t come here for small talk, so spit it out.”

Firm and to the point. Rey shouldn’t have expected anything else. Still, she hesitated. She didn’t entirely know how to express what she wanted and she still wasn’t sure why she was here and not with Luke. 

Luke was the one who truly owed Rey answers.

Maybe that was why Rey was with Leia instead. It somehow seemed easier to begin discussing her suspicions with the woman who might be… Well, it seemed easier with Leia rather than Luke.

“I went to Tatooine,” Rey started before stopping again, losing the way forward.

“Yes, I know,” Leia prompted. “That was one of my fleet’s ships you borrowed, remember?”

Rey flushed. “Right. Of course.”

“Luke said you were following a vision?”

“Yes.”

“They don’t generally turn out the way you expect, do they?” Leia said, a bit more sympathetically.

“They really don’t,” Rey said with a sigh. “I… I think I saw… I felt…”

Closing her eyes briefly, Leia said, “I can imagine what you might have run into on Tatooine. Or who.”

Rey didn’t say that she felt that same presence here, sometimes, too, watching over her. She wasn’t sure how Leia felt about her birth father, beyond the obvious fact that it must be complicated. “He… showed me things.”

“And you have questions.”

“Yes.”

“Luke?”

Rey shook her head. “Not… not yet.”

“You know he can tell you things I can’t.”

“I know. But I don’t… Please, Leia.”

Though her reluctance was obvious, Leia said, “I’ll answer your questions if I can.”

Rey breathed out. “Master Luke’s school. The Jedi Academy.”

Leia’s brown eyes seemed to indicate that she knew what Rey was getting at. “Yes.” 

“Was I there?”

“Yes.”

“Why can’t I remember?”

Leia’s pause was so prolonged that Rey almost thought she wouldn’t answer. “Some memories are best forgotten.”

“But it’s _there._ I know it is.” That gap in Rey’s mind, she could feel it. Her childhood. The school.

Luke. Kylo Ren.

“It was for your protection,” Leia said, voice quiet. “You were so young and vulnerable, and no one wanted--” She stopped, looking haunted, and Rey could feel her thoughts, the loss, the pain of losing her son, the fear that she would lose more, the fear that her _son_ could –

And then it was gone, Leia forcibly walling off her mind as if she realized she had lost control.

Rey just looked at her.

_Are you who I think you are?_

Rey couldn’t ask.

Leia wouldn’t say.

Rey thought Leia would never say until Luke did first.


	3. Chapter 3

The Resistance was perpetually looking forward and perpetually preparing for the worst, which meant that they were always on the look-out for potential new base sites, for the day they would need to move on again. That was why Rey was flying out with Poe, getting readings of a small, remote planet that had only a designation rather than a true name. After flying through atmosphere to see what they could see, she and Poe landed their X-wings so they could get out and walk around for a while, taking readings.

The planet was cool and mountainous, not the most easily traversable of places. Particularly not for droids, which was why BB-8 and R2-D2 were waiting for them with the X-wings.

Still, the gravity and oxygen levels were within acceptable parameters and there were no settlements. They had set down in what passed for relatively open terrain and Poe was talking to himself aloud, mapping out possible set-ups for the buildings the Resistance would need.

They would need to build everything but it wouldn’t be the first time.

“I want to check that out,” Poe said, pointing to what might have been a distant cave. “Let’s split up for a bit, you keep heading west, and we’ll meet back at the landing site in, say, two hours.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“It’ll be fine, let us cover more ground faster. I don’t want to stay here past dark.”

Rey knew Poe had a point and she also knew that they could both take care of themselves. She nodded her agreement and said, “Yes, Commander,” a bit cheekily, getting Poe to roll his eyes at her as the two of them headed off in opposite directions.

There was a serenity to this planet that Rey appreciated, a peacefulness. She could feel the Force flowing around her, could feel it in the birds flying overhead and the small animals that scurried on the ground. Rey walked and thought about channeling the Force through herself, as Luke had taught her, feeling it course through her limbs, letting it propel her actions, even in mundane tasks like this.

Every lifeform had a distinctive shape in the Force, a singular presence that was unique to them. Rey knew how Finn felt, and Poe. Luke, Chewie, Leia.

And Kylo Ren.

Kylo Ren was fire and rage, discontent and conflict like a swirling tempest within him, and more fear than he would like anyone to know.

He was here.

Rey stuffed her datapad into her bag and ignited her lightsaber.

He came striding towards her, black robes swirling around his feet, red lightsaber crackling. Rey felt a familiar surge of hatred as she saw him, her rage bubbling up to the surface. What he’d done to Finn, to Poe, to Han.

He might be… But it didn’t matter. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to finish the job. She knew it was the last thing she should want as a Jedi but it was what she wanted all the same.

“What a pleasant surprise,” he said through the mask. “Rey. Where are your Jedi robes? Your Padawan braid? I’d heard you found Luke Skywalker. Did he refuse you after all?”

“Why are you here?”

“Does it matter? I think finding each other was what we both wanted. Consider it a stroke of luck for us both.”

Perhaps the Force had been leading her to him after all. It had just taken longer than she had expected. “Take off your mask. I’d like to see if I left a scar. Hope so. Hope it still hurts. How’s your leg, by the way?”

Rey could see the way Kylo Ren’s hand tightened around the grip of his lightsaber but he said only, “How’s the traitor?”

Rey thought of Luke talking of defense rather than attack, telling her how the Jedi were meant to protect. She lunged at Kylo Ren anyway.

He was ready for her, blocking her rush instinctively, unfazed by the impulsiveness of her assault. They traded blows, nimbly navigating the rocky terrain. Rey struck at Kylo Ren’s masked face, their blades crossing, pushing forward as he held her back.

“So much anger in you,” he said, amusement bleeding through. “Luke would be so disappointed. I could show you how to use your anger, how to embrace it, how to let it make you more powerful.”

“This again? I’m never going to say yes.”

“Never is such a final sort of word. I’d prefer to think that we’re at an impasse until I can change your mind.”

“Keep dreaming.” Rey twisted away from him, watching, assessing, looking for an opening. Ren struck at her impatiently, a flurry of movement, but Rey continued to fend him off. On Starkiller Base she had only been guessing, unaware of the true strength that lay within her, the strength she could draw on from the Force. Rey knew better now, and she was stronger, and she knew she could beat him. She wouldn’t underestimate him but she knew she could beat him.

She was so intent on the fight that the sound of the blaster didn’t register at all; it wasn’t until Kylo Ren was falling, the lightsaber slipping from his hand, that she realized he’d been hit.

As he dropped to his knees, Rey held her lightsaber to his throat. She looked behind her. She looked to Poe.

He was broadcasting his emotions so loudly there was no way to miss it, surprise and fear and hatred and above all else, shame.

He was so ashamed.

_He was in a dark room, and he was screaming, and he tried not to but he gave it all up anyway, he -_

Rey blinked, shuddered.

“Look what we’ve caught,” Poe said evenly.

“Dameron,” Kylo Ren said. “I’m so pleased to see you again. You were such a help the last time we met.”

The sense of humiliation emanating from Poe was so powerful it was a small miracle he could still stand – or maybe just a marker of his own strength of will. If Rey could feel it then she knew Ren could as well, and Poe probably realized it. Likely that was making it worse.

“You’re lucky your mother is who she is or I’d kill you right here,” Poe told him. His hand held firm, no sign of wavering, as he continued to aim his blaster at Kylo Ren.

Laughter through the filter of Kylo Ren’s mask was an odd noise to hear. “You’d kill me, would you? You might be a formidable force in the skies but without your ship, you’re nothing.”

“Try me,” Poe snarled, moving forward.

“No one’s killing anyone,” Rey said, reaching out and standing there between the two men until Poe met her eyes. She could see the moment he acquiesced.

Rey wanted to kill Kylo Ren, no matter who he might have been once. She couldn’t deny that she might have done it, if she could have. But she knew that he was worth more to them alive and that she owed Leia Organa the opportunity to see what had become of her son. Rey wasn’t going to kill an unarmed man who was at her mercy. That would make her as bad as Kylo Ren.

“Ren is our prisoner,” Rey said.“I’ll stay here with him, you head back to our ships. Contact the base.”

Kylo Ren was laughing and Rey couldn’t figure out why, why would he be laughing, they were about to cart him back to the Resistance, and then he spoke.

“You’re still fools, both of you. Do you think I am ever actually alone?”

That was when Rey felt it. “No,” she breathed, sensing so many lifeforms at the edge of her mind. She had been so focused on Ren that she’d blinded herself. “Poe, we have to go, _now._ The First Order is here and if we don’t go we’ll never get off this planet.”

“Not with your freedom, in any case,” Kylo Ren added.

Poe’s fury was a tangible force in Rey’s head. “I’m not leaving him here!”

“Where do you mean to put him, then? Strap him to the back of Black One?” Rey looked to Kylo Ren where he knelt at her feet and did the only thing she could. She kneed him in the face and felt him sink into unconsciousness. She clipped her lightsaber to her belt. “We can’t wait. If we do, they’ll find us. We have to go without him.”

Swearing in about four different languages, Poe ceded to Rey’s argument. “All right, come on.”

As they ran, Rey spared a backwards glance at Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, still abandoned on the ground. Perhaps she should have -

But it was too late now. She ran with Poe to their X-wings, concentrating on the feel of the stormtroopers’ presence. R2-D2 was beeping shrilly as they approached. Well, damn, there was another curse word he was teaching BB-8.

“We know, we know!” Rey yelled, vaulting up the ladder. R2 moved back into place beneath the ship so Rey could raise him up. She lifted into the air seconds after Poe, praying they wouldn’t meet any resistance in the form of TIEs.

So far, so good.

“Inputting coordinates,” Poe’s voice crackled over the comm. “Ready for the jump?”

“Ready,” Rey said. She punched it and they left the planet, and Kylo Ren, behind.

-

In between jumps, Poe generally chattered a lot. He hardly ever talked about anything important, mostly just jokes and nonsense, but Rey liked it. He was fun and it was a nice distraction from the monotony of space travel, which always seemed particularly monotonous in the cramped cockpit of an X-wing. Not that she didn’t appreciate R2, of course, but it was just nice, to have Poe there over comms.

He had been virtually silent the entire trip back to base, talking only when he needed to. No jokes, no laughter.

Rey knew he was miserable. The fact that he was actually letting on that he was miserable, not covering it up with cheek or bravado, was bad. It was so bad.

Rey had an awful feeling that it was because of her. She had witnessed what was in Poe’s head, not intentionally, but she’d witnessed it all the same, and Poe knew she had.

If Rey could see inside Poe’s head right now, she knew what she would find.

When they returned to base, Rey left R2 to go find Luke and stood waiting a little ways off as Poe knelt by BB-8, having a muted, hurried conversation. When the droid rolled off, Poe stood up and nodded his head to Rey. “We should find the general. Get our debrief in.”

 _Tell her we beat the druk out of her son and then lost him,_ Rey thought, inwardly cringing.

Leia was in her office, sitting behind her desk and scrolling through a datapad. “You’re back earlier than expected,” she said to them.

Rey exchanged a glance with Poe. She was anxious but Poe was standing there like a soldier, spine straight, hands interlaced behind his back. He turned back to face Leia, eyes forward.

“The planet was promising, General,” he said. “Preliminary results showed it would have served our purposes well.”

“Dameron, just give me the bad news. Your face is already telling me there’s a big ‘but’ coming.”

“The First Order was there.”

Leia closed her eyes briefly. “Ren?” she asked, though she seemed to already know the answer.

Poe nodded.

“He didn’t hurt you?” Her gaze flickered between them.

When Poe appeared less than eager to volunteer the fact that he had shot Leia’s son, Rey opened her mouth. “No, we’re both fine. We would have captured him but he’d brought stormtroopers with him. We determined the risk was too great.”

“You made the right call,” Leia said, her eyes lingering on Rey as if she suspected whose call it had been. “Do we know why the First Order was there?”

Rey was about to say ‘no’ but Poe spoke before she could. “I imagine because of the cave.”

“The cave?”

“I’m no Jedi but I know the Force. He was there for the cave.” Poe glanced to Rey. “I was coming back to tell you.”

Rey pushed away the stab of anger she felt towards Kylo Ren for preventing her from exploring the cave Poe had found. She knew of those sorts of places, where the Force flowed so strongly, and she regretted the lost opportunity. Kriffing Kylo Ren. She wished she’d hit him harder.

Leia sighed, rubbing her temples in the sort of weary gesture she normally never allowed herself where anyone could see. “It’s unfortunate,” she said, “but we’ll survive. Get some rest, you two. You’ve earned it.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t have better news for you, General,” Poe said.

Leia smiled faintly at him and waved them out of the room. “That’s all right, Poe.”

Rey kept pace with Poe as they walked down the hall. She wanted to ask him about the cave, about what he’d felt there, but she didn’t feel like this was the time. He formed this brittle picture in her head and she didn’t know what to do about it.

“I wanted to get him, too,” she said finally.

“I know.”

“We did all we could.”

“All we could,” he huffed, but Rey knew his ire wasn’t really directed towards her. “That’s so reassuring.”

“What do you want me to say, then?” Rey asked, unable to mask her frustration. She didn’t know what to do with this bitter, self-recriminating Poe, this unfamiliar Poe who couldn’t shake it all off with a shrug and a smile.

“You can say nothing.”

“Poe,” Rey said, grabbing his elbow.

He jerked away from her, spinning to face her and stopping in place. “What do you want from me? Haven’t you seen enough?”

Poe was projecting again, that anger and shame and humiliation, and Rey couldn’t block it even though she tried.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, uselessly.

“You’re sorry,” Poe repeated. “Sorry you know what I did? Sorry you know I gave up?”

“He tortured you. He tore it out of your head. That’s not giving up.”

“He was in your head, too, and you didn’t tell him anything.”

Rey wanted to say that was different, Kylo Ren had unwittingly unlocked her connection to the Force, but she didn’t think saying that would make Poe feel any better.

In the end she couldn’t make herself say anything, just standing there dumbly.

“I’ll be in the ‘fresher,” Poe said, leaving her, and Rey let him go.

-

That was the worst of it. In the days that followed, Poe became more himself again, laughing with Finn and spending a lot of time fixing up Black One after the trip.

Rey couldn’t help but notice that it was different between them, though. The easy camaraderie they had gained was diminished and their conversations took effort. Poe didn’t seem to want to be alone with her and it was awkward when they found themselves together.

“What should I do, Beebee?” Rey asked the droid, sitting by him while she fiddled with a broken blaster. She couldn’t help but laugh when she heard his reply. “I wish I knew how to do that. Is he really mad at me?”

The droid told her no, but that Poe was just sad and didn’t want anyone to know.

Rey wasn’t entirely certain she believed BB-8. The second part was true, at least, but if Poe wasn’t mad at her then he wouldn’t be being so… weird. She didn’t know how to apologize, how to speak to him, how to make it better.

It didn’t help that part of her resented him for thinking she would judge him. She had thought they knew each other better than that.

But then she felt ashamed for feeling that way because Poe was hurting and it wasn’t fair to think badly of him.

Rey sighed. The whole thing was a mess.

“I wish I’d taken out Ren myself before Poe even got there,” she said. “I should have been better.”

BB-8 beeped sadly.

-

Days passed and Rey and Poe reached a sort of equilibrium but didn’t return to how they had been. It was funny how you could miss someone even while you were in the same room with them.

Rey went to Luke and told him everything. Kylo Ren, their fight, her anger, her desire for vengeance for what Ren had done. She told him every ugly truth and felt better for it. Luke showed no recrimination and she could see that he understood, though he again spoke of how important it was to let go of that sort of hatred and fury before it consumed her.

“It will destroy you, if you let it,” he told her.

 _Like it destroyed my cousin?_ Rey thought. _My grandfather?_

But she couldn’t make herself say it. She only said, “Like it destroyed Kylo Ren?”

Luke’s answer was in his eyes, without him needing to say a word.

“Do you think he can still be saved?” Rey asked.

“Everyone can be saved,” Luke said. “If they want to be. It’s a decision he must make for himself; no one can do it for him. We can only give him a place to return to.”

Anakin was there, in the room, Rey could feel him. His love was so powerful, his love for Luke, even for Kylo Ren. (For her? His love for her?) She wondered how the man who used to be called Ben could have fallen so far when he had been so loved.

But then, she didn’t really need to wonder. Anakin had been loved, too, and he had loved fiercely in turn. Love could still be twisted, and love could make you frightened and angry and lead you to make the wrong choices.

In her head she could see that lightsaber protruding through Han’s back, she could see Finn face-first in the snow, she could see Poe, bloody and screaming. How could a person capable of that still be deserving of another chance? How could Luke still believe in him?

Rey wasn’t that good. Her heart wasn’t as big as his.

She could never be a Jedi like Luke.

_Then don’t. Be like yourself._

Luke was smiling faintly, just a slight tilt to his lips. “You should listen to him. He’s been around longer than I have.”

In surprise, Rey said, “You can hear him?”

“Of course. At least, when he wants me to.”

Anakin was laughing, a brightness in the room. Rey smiled, too, and thought of family and belonging.

-

Rey went to the room Poe shared with Finn, hoping they could all spend some time together, but found only Finn. Apparently Poe was playing holochess with Snap. She tried not to be disappointed.

“So what’s with you and Poe?” Finn asked.

Frag. Was it bad enough that Finn had noticed? Actually, that shouldn’t surprise her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, how do you feel about him? Because at first you liked him, and then it seemed like maybe you didn’t, and then you were fine again, and now you’re getting sort of… weird.”

“Weird?”

Finn shrugged. “Yeah, weird. And Poe, he likes you. A lot.”

“I suppose.” Rey had thought so, at least. She wasn’t so sure now.

“No, I mean, he _likes_ you,” Finn said, as if this were significant. “So I wondered, are you being weird because you feel like that, too?”

“Because I feel like what?”

“Because you like him! Because you have a crush on him.”

“I do not have a crush on Poe!” And anyway, was Finn trying to insinuate that Poe had a crush on _her_? Because that… was not what Rey had expected to hear in this conversation.

“Your defensiveness indicates otherwise.”

“Oh, so if I said I did have a crush on him, you’d think I don’t really?”

“Well, no.”

“So what you’re saying is you’ve already made up your mind, regardless of what I might say.”

“See, I love this rapport we have here, Rey, you just get me.”

Rey shoved him in the shoulder. “Ass,” she said, though she was fighting a smile. “I don’t have a crush on Poe, though. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Whatever you say.”

The truth of the matter, Rey was forced to admit, however, was that honestly, she didn’t know if she would even know if she had a crush on Poe. How did one tell? How did one distinguish between feelings of friendship and feelings of… something else?

Sure, Poe was not exactly unattractive, but she could notice that in an objective way. Finn was also not unattractive but she had already established she only loved Finn in a friends way. Poe maybe sometimes made Rey feel uncomfortable, but she assumed that was just because he was weird and their relationship was weird. If he stood too close sometimes Rey’s insides felt… odd, and her hands sweated, and her breathing quickened, but it was probably just because she wasn’t used to it. They didn’t share the same sort of closeness that Rey and Finn did.

Except that was a lie, wasn’t it? If that were true, she wouldn’t even be having this conversation with Finn because none of what had happened on that planet would matter and she wouldn’t be so upset that Poe was upset with her and so Finn would never have noticed that anything was off.

And there were these… moments, sometimes, where she looked at Poe and she thought… She wanted…

The problem was, as ever, that Rey didn’t know what she wanted.

“He has a… pleasant face,” she found herself saying. What?

“A pleasant face,” Finn repeated, his expression hovering somewhere between bewilderment and delight. “A pleasant face? Hell, Rey.”

“Shut up,” she said, picking at her cuticles before realizing what an obviously nervous gesture that was and forcibly stopping herself. “You think Poe likes me?” she asked, knowing she sounded stupid but nevertheless wanting to know the answer.

Finn nodded. “I have it on very good authority.”

Which meant he had probably been talking to at least Karé and who knew who else. Rey considered the idea, assuming for the moment that it was true. Poe liked her, maybe more than she had thought he did. Which meant… what? What was she supposed to do about it? What did he want her to do about it?

What did she want to do about it?

Oh, frag. Life used to be so simple on Jakku.

“That’s not what’s making it weird,” Rey said. “It’s not me. It’s not on purpose. It’s because of what happened when we were scouting that planet, when we found Kylo Ren.”

Finn’s eyes widened, realization dawning. “Oh. But… What does that have to do with you? You hate Ren as much as he does. You were in it together, right?”

“It’s more about me seeing some things I think he would rather have kept private.”

“You went in his head?” Finn sounded appalled and Rey was actually a little offended that he would assume she’d do something like that.

“No! Not on purpose! But his emotions were so strong I couldn’t help it; it was like he was forcing it into my head.”

“And now he’s embarrassed.”

“I guess so. He… he doesn’t trust me,” Rey said. That was what was bothering her. Knowing that Poe didn’t trust her with this. She had thought they’d grown closer but maybe she was fooling herself.

If Poe did like her, he didn’t like her enough to trust her with what mattered. That hurt more than Rey cared to think about.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Finn said, expression full of sympathy.

“He can hardly look at me.”

“It’s not you, it’s--”

“He can look at you, can’t he? You were there on the _Finalizer_ with him. He can look at you. He’s still Poe with you. With me, he’s…”

“Vulnerable,” Finn said, though that hadn’t been what Rey was going to say. “You knew him a certain way, Poe Dameron, the Resistance pilot. Black Leader. And now you know him differently, in a way he wishes he could forget. What happened there, with Kylo Ren, I think it made him feel less, and that’s not something he’s used to.”

“But I don’t care,” Rey said. “I don’t care about it. He’s still the same person to me.”

“But he cares, and he’s not the same person to himself.”

“But what do I do about that?”

“I don’t know,” Finn said.

-

When Rey approached Poe, he was in the hangar bay with BB-8 and his X-wing. This was entirely intentional. If Rey had to engage him in an uncomfortable conversation – and she did have to, for the sake of their friendship, which she was unwilling to let slide – she was at least going to do it in a setting where Poe was in his element.

He was singing softly to himself as she approached and he flashed her a quick smile when he saw her. If it was maybe a bit forced, it was still better than the reaction she had been fearing. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Rey said, smiling down at BB-8 as the droid burbled a cheerful greeting. “Got a minute?”

“Sure, if you don’t mind if I keep fiddling with this,” Poe said, elbow-deep in wiring.

“I don’t mind.” Actually maybe it would be better that way. Poe would have something to focus on and Rey wouldn’t have to look him in the face. This wasn’t going to be easy for her, either.

“Shoot, then.”

So Rey just went for it, not letting herself think. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to apologize, or how to explain.”

Poe’s fingers slipped but he didn’t say anything.

Rey took a breath. “I hope you know that I would never intentionally intrude on your thoughts or seek entrance inside your mind, not ever. It’s only that sometimes… sometimes emotions are so powerful that I can’t help but to feel them, like they’re inside my own head. No one means to project, but they do, and when that happens, I can’t stop myself from seeing it.”

She waited for a few seconds but Poe didn’t say anything and he wasn’t looking at her, his shoulders tense. BB-8’s little round eye was swiveling between the two of them.

“What happened to you on the _Finalizer_ was a violation. I just wanted you to know I would never do that to you on purpose. I’m sorry that it happened anyway.”

 _Kriff,_ Rey thought. What a shoddy way to say it all.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Poe said, and Rey was so surprised she almost didn’t hear. “You didn’t do anything.”

“Some things are meant to be private.”

“Wasn’t your fault. Like you said. Really it’s me who should be apologizing to you.”

“What for?”

“For being an ass.”

“You really were,” Rey said and then clapped a hand over her mouth, horrified. Why had she said that _out loud_?

But Poe was chuckling, finally looking away from the innards of his ship. “I appreciate the honesty.”

“You had your reasons,” Rey said, backtracking a little.

“No excuse,” Poe insisted. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I just thought…”

“I’d look at you differently?”

“How could you not?”

“Because I already know you and because you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That’s generous.” He’d turned away from her again.

“Poe,” Rey said, moving closer to him but not quite being brave enough to touch him. “Do you think I wasn’t afraid, when he took me on Takodana? Do you think I wasn’t terrified when I woke up bound to that terrible chair, when he pulled things out of my head? I know how it feels, how…” She closed her eyes for a second, the memories rising in her mind. “I know you fought. You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”

“That’s easy to say,” Poe muttered, and Rey didn’t know how to respond.

Then Poe said, “I just wanted to get him, so badly. I thought maybe if I did it would make up for what I’d done and it would… Maybe I could make _him_ feel how I felt, let him be the one in restraints spitting up blood, waiting to be killed.” Poe was speaking so softly, staring into the open panel of his ship. His shoulders sagged. “Then we let him go.”

“Temporary setback,” Rey said, knowing it was inadequate.

“Temporary setback,” Poe repeated. He looked at her again, anger burning in his dark eyes. “I guess revenge isn’t something Jedi can understand, it’s such a base desire. Not… not noble, or whatever you’re supposed to be.”

“You think I don’t understand revenge? You think I don’t want that? Me, who found Finn lying in the snow with his back ripped open, who watched Kylo Ren stab a lightsaber through the first man who ever--” Rey swallowed, blinking rapidly, calming herself. “I actually thought we knew each other, Poe, but maybe I was wrong, because I don’t think you know me at all. I’m sorry you don’t trust me and I’m sorry you think I’m someone I’m not.”

As Rey strode away she half-expected Poe to come after her, but he didn’t. BB-8 was trilling anxiously but Rey heard Poe say, “Beebee, that’s enough, let her go,” and then she ducked around an X-wing and left them both behind.

-

“I don’t know if I’m more angry or… disappointed,” Rey said to Finn, sitting next to him on a hill near the tarmac. “And I feel stupid because I thought we were actually friends, I thought he…”

“You _are_ friends, Rey,” Finn insisted. “I don’t know why he said what he did but maybe you should cut him some slack. He’s been feeling pretty crummy himself.”

“So it’s okay for him to take it out on me?”

“No, of course not, that’s not what I--”

“You’re so convinced he likes me but he doesn’t even know me! I was fooling myself. I guess I wanted to believe…” Rey stopped, sighing. She had wanted to believe that she could be important to Poe, that she could be special. Maybe she had only been foolish, thinking she could navigate their complicated relationship when she had never even had a friend before meeting Finn.

“You need to talk to him,” Finn said, his eyes on an approaching figure. “You should probably do it right now.”

Rey followed his gaze. Oh, frag.

Poe came closer, stopping in front of them. He tugged at his collar like he was nervous, his eyes flickering from Rey to Finn and back to Rey again. “Um, hey. Hey, guys.”

Rey pretended he wasn’t there. She could feel the weight of Finn’s stare boring into the side of her head. She wasn’t going to make the first move, that was for sure.

“Hi, Poe,” Finn said, and he was standing up, why was he standing up?

Rey glared at him but he ignored her completely.

“I just remembered I have to do something,” Finn said, hurrying away, and Poe settled into the now unoccupied space next to Rey.

“That wasn’t obvious at all,” Rey said.

“It’s probably easier on him if we’re actually speaking to one another,” Poe said, which Rey had to admit made sense.

Still, she wasn’t starting this. This was on Poe.

Luckily Poe seemed to understand that. “I thought we could talk?”

“So talk.”

“Right, uh…” Poe swept a hand through his black hair, mussing it. “You went out of your way to apologize even though I was the one who was being a jerk, and then I made it all worse.”

“Basically,” Rey agreed.

“I haven’t been myself lately. That’s not an excuse, it’s just… Oh, hell. I’m sorry, Rey.”

“I know,” Rey said because she couldn’t quite make herself say, _it’s okay, Poe,_ or _I forgive you._ She kept thinking of how stupid she had been, thinking there was more between them than there was. The sting of realizing it had all been in her head hurt too much still.

“I wasn’t thinking about you,” Poe said. “When I said what I said, I wasn’t thinking about you. I was thinking about me. That doesn’t make it okay but… I didn’t want… Can we start over?”

Rey looked sideways at him. “What?”

“Can we just go back to before, when we were both trying to understand each other? I can explain, I want to explain better. I… What you felt from me, that… I thought I was going to die on that ship. I’d betrayed my mission, the Resistance, my friends, and I thought I was going to die. I’d been in bad spots before but I’d never genuinely believed that it was over, that there was no hope. But I did then. I’d given up. And that… I don’t like remembering that part of me. I didn’t want you to see that part of me.”

That was the point. Didn’t Poe get it? She felt sad for him, being forced to relive those memories that clearly haunted him, but the entire point was that she wanted to be the sort of person he could trust with his fears, with the ugly parts of himself that he didn’t like. “But it’s okay for Finn to see that part of you?”

“I’ve never told that to Finn.”

“But Finn was--”

“Finn saw me in restraints but he can’t see into my head. I’ve never told that to him. Or to anyone.”

Rey’s voice caught in her throat and she had to swallow before she could speak. “I thought you didn’t trust me.”

“If I ever made you feel that way then I’m sorry. It wasn’t about trust. It was about… how you see me.” Poe’s eyes were boring into hers, his expression so intense. “Your opinion matters to me, Rey.”

“But why would this change my opinion of you?” Thinking of what Finn had said, Rey said, “What happened on the _Finalizer,_ that’s nothing to be ashamed of. It doesn’t make you less-- it makes you more. You survived.”

Poe’s tone was bitter. “I was lucky. I gave him everything he needed and then got rescued by Finn.”

Rey considered all of the things she could say, discarding them one after another. She could think of how Poe would respond to each. Finally she settled on, “I ran, on Takodana. I was afraid. We’ve all done things we’re ashamed of. We just have to learn to live with that.”

“And maybe kick Kylo Ren in the balls the next time we see him?”

Rey laughed. “Maybe that, too.”

They sat there quietly beside each other and it felt easier than it had since before the mission, like maybe they had arrived at a new understanding. Rey was more relieved than she wanted to admit; she had hated the discomfort between them. Maybe at one point she had resented Poe’s constant presence but she certainly didn’t anymore. Now he was as much a central part of her life as Finn was and she didn’t want to lose that.

“I really am sorry though, Rey,” Poe said. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I hope you know how much I value your friendship.”

It didn’t matter if Poe liked her the way Finn had said. He cared for her and that was all that mattered. Knowing she was important to him was all Rey needed.

“I do,” Rey said.


	4. Chapter 4

Rey was of the opinion that Luke intentionally picked out the least hospitable planets in the entire galaxy for their Jedi training excursions. She said as much to him, getting only a quirk of the lips in response.

“I haven’t taken you to Dagobah yet,” he said.

Rey didn’t know what Dagobah was but she doubted it could be worse than the chunk of ice they had spent the past three weeks on. She had thought Starkiller Base was bad. Clearly she had been wrong.

Although she wasn’t prepared to admit it out loud, in spite of the discomfort and lack of amenities, Rey loved going on these trips with Luke. She had learned so much from him and she genuinely enjoyed spending time with him. Besides that, she felt like she was truly able to feel the Force, to commune with it, to feel it flow through her. After Tatooine she felt as though she was… settling. She had a better sense of her own self and it showed in her mastery of the Force.

She did always end up missing Finn tremendously, though, and, somewhat to her surprise, Poe. Rey would catch herself turning to say something and then remember that neither of them were with her. Each night when she was exhausted and sore and feeling muscles that she hadn’t even known she had, she would lie there and think of them, picture their faces, think of the conversations she wished she could have with them.

There was one person, however, Rey could converse with just as easily here as she could back at the base, and she didn’t mean Luke.

Anakin.

Rey felt his hovering presence at the edge of her mind, sometimes, while she was training, or when she meditated, and sometimes he appeared before her, sitting cross-legged, his figure slightly muted and dim. It was probably a bit weird but Rey always felt comforted speaking to him, knowing he was there, watching over her. Of course she knew the things he had done but with her he was just… Anakin. Anakin, who maybe loved her. Anakin, who wanted only the best for her.

She was grateful for him.

After a month on the ice planet, Rey and Luke set a course back to the Resistance base. Rey could hardly keep her eyes open as they journeyed through hyperspace and Luke told her she could rest, he could handle the ship on his own, but Rey declined. She was tired, that much was true, but she was filled with this restlessness that she knew wouldn’t allow her to sleep. She just wanted to get home to Finn and Poe. She missed their dumb faces.

Happily, their dumb faces were waiting for her when she disembarked. The two of them were grinning at her and Rey just sprinted to them, not caring if anyone was watching. She threw her arms around Finn, clutching him tightly. “I missed you so much,” she said.

“Same,” Finn said, feeling warm and strong in Rey’s arms.

Raising her eyes, Rey could see Poe hovering there behind Finn’s shoulder, nervous and awkward, like he wasn’t sure what his place was. Rey unwrapped one arm from around Finn’s back and gestured him over.

Poe was more than happy to squeeze his arms around them both.

Hearing a gentle cough, Rey reluctantly disentangled herself and turned to Luke, who was watching them in amusement.

“Take the day tomorrow,” he said. “Rest. You’ve earned it. I only ask that you spend some time in meditation.”

Rey nodded. “Yes, Master Luke, absolutely.”

“Good,” he said, smiling first at her and then at the two men. “Have a good night, you three.”

Finn linked his arm with Rey’s and pulled her forward, saying, “No offense, Rey, but you look like you’re gonna crash. Do it in our room instead of out here, okay?”

“I’m fine,” Rey insisted, though her yawn probably didn’t help matters.

“Oh, I see how it is,” Poe teased. “You can say you’re fine and it’s true, but when I say it, it’s definitely a lie.”

“Is this the face of a person who would tell a lie?”

“Yes,” Finn and Poe said simultaneously.

“Hate you both,” Rey said, stifling another yawn, but nevertheless she allowed Finn and Poe to guide her to their quarters.

Honestly too tired to pretend she wasn’t virtually asleep on her feet, Rey collapsed onto the nearest bed, using the wall to keep herself upright. It was Poe’s bed, but he didn’t seem to mind. He simply sat next to her, pulling his knees in, keeping some distance between himself and Rey the way he always did.

Rey pressed her head back against the wall, yawning again, letting her eyes fall half-shut.

“I’ve, uh, I’ve got some news,” Finn said, exchanging a glance with Poe.

That got Rey’s full attention. “News?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna be gone for a while. Heading out with Iolo in the morning, general’s orders.”

“Tomorrow morning?” Rey said, aghast. “But I’ve only just got here!”

Finn was clearly regretful. “I know. Bad timing.”

“It’s okay,” Rey said, though she was currently regretting all of her life choices as well as Finn’s and Poe’s. “Won’t be long, right?”

“Right,” Finn said, and none of them were thinking about all of the things that could go wrong. They weren’t.

“On that cheery note,” Poe said, “who wants to finish that drama from Naboo?”

“Oh!” Rey exclaimed. “Yes, it was just getting good!”

Poe was smirking a little. “And you try to malign my taste in films.”

“One good one doesn’t excuse all the trash you’ve made us sit through.”

“ _One_ good one! Come on, we all know that’s a lie.”

“I’m starting it,” Finn interrupted, getting on the bed beside them. “Everyone hush.”

It was a good film. Rey wanted to know how it ended. But she felt her eyelids drooping and she felt herself shifting, her body protesting the idea of staying upright. She slowly drifted sideways, leaning onto the closest available surface. Part of her knew that was Poe but the rest of her didn’t care. He was nice and stable and right there and she could have moved the other way, she could have redirected herself onto Finn instead, but she was already mostly gone and she really… didn’t… care.

-

There was a light weight resting against Rey’s head when she woke, and something rough underneath her cheek. She was sleeping against something sturdy and warm that definitely wasn’t a pillow and didn’t feel at all like her bed.

She took a few moments to attempt to clear her head, blinking her eyes and banishing the fuzziness of sleep. Then she realized she was lying in someone’s lap. Finn? Had she fallen asleep on Finn? She should move; he was leaving this morning. She didn’t want to make him late.

The pressure against her head was his hand, resting there in her hair. He was humming softly, only Finn didn’t usually hum and it sounded like…

Oh, damn it.

Rey pushed herself upright and tried to scramble away so quickly that she only ended up falling into Poe, her hands braced against his chest. He looked startled, raising his own hands up as if to say, _look, no touching, it’s safe, everything’s safe, I’m not doing anything._

“Whoa, hey, it’s all right, Rey, geez,” he said. “You were sleeping, that’s all, I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Where’s Finn?” Rey asked, feeling a full-body blush overtake her. Why the frag had she been sleeping on Poe? How awkward. She got off the bed so there was a safe distance between them.

“He’s gone already,” Poe told her, seeming sorry about it. He shifted his weight and stretched out his limbs, flexing and extending his feet and stretching his arms overhead. He probably hadn’t moved all night.

“He didn’t say goodbye,” Rey said, hurt.

“He almost woke you, but you were so… He was being kind. Or that’s what he wanted to be, anyway.”

Though Rey still would have preferred being able to see Finn before he left, she supposed she could forgive him. Poe, on the other hand… “I can’t believe you let me sleep here all night.”

“You were exhausted. I wasn’t gonna be the one to make you move.”

“So you just sat there like that all night?”

Poe shrugged. “I fly X-wings for a living. Not a lot I can’t get used to.”

“You still could’ve woken me,” Rey said, mostly under her breath. It wasn’t that she was upset, she was more… embarrassed. Okay, she was embarrassed. She had spent the night with her face in Poe’s lap. She felt she was owed the right to be embarrassed.

And she couldn’t help but wonder what it meant, that Poe had been so willing to sacrifice his own comfort so that he wouldn’t disturb her. Rey told herself he would have done the same for anyone; that was just who Poe was. Only his touch had felt so gentle, his hand in her hair, when Poe never touched her if he could help it, not unless Rey initiated the contact.

She was the only person he was like that with. She didn’t know why.

“Finn left you a note,” Poe said, nodding his head towards the desk.

Rey picked up the flimsi that was sitting there, covered in Finn’s scrawling handwriting. It said: _Don’t be mad I didn’t say goodbye, you looked so content it would have been mean to wake you! I was planning on telling you to be nice to Poe while I’m gone and to try to spend some time together, but I guess maybe I don’t have to now. I knew you really liked him! See you soon! Finn._

That blush was back in Rey’s cheeks. She could just picture Finn’s grinning face as he went jumping to conclusions. This meant nothing.

Stars, why had she had to fall asleep? Why couldn’t she at least have fallen asleep on Finn instead? Poe was… Poe was…

He was watching her. “Guess it’s just you and me for a while,” he said, his smile tentative and shy.

“That sounds all right to me,” Rey told him, and his smile became a little less shy.

-

Without Finn around, Rey sometimes felt a bit lonely. Her solution to this was usually to find Poe. Finn would be thrilled (so of course, Rey resolved to never tell him).

Upon entering Poe’s quarters one evening, Rey discovered that Poe wasn’t alone. He was with Jess and Karé, all three of them on Poe’s bed, passing a bottle of something alcoholic between them.

“Hey,” Poe said, handing the bottle over to Jess.

She raised it up. “Want to join us?”

Rey looked at them, hesitating. She hadn’t planned on Poe having company and though she liked Jess and Karé, she felt like she was intruding. 

But they had offered, seemingly genuinely, so Rey relented and joined them on the bed. She sat next to Jess, who was nearest, and who gave her the bottle immediately. Rey took a sip, felt it burn down her throat, and gave it back to Jess.

Rey shifted herself slightly, leaving a few inches of open bed between herself and Jess. The other three had no similar qualms about personal space, but then, they never seemed to. Poe was flanked by the two women, all of them in each others’ space, sprawled familiarly together. 

“I’ve been meaning to thank you, Rey,” Karé said, reaching across Poe to take the bottle of alcohol from Jess.

“For what?”

“For keeping him distracted while Finn’s away,” she replied, elbowing Poe in the ribs. “I had resigned myself to an endless parade of ‘oh, too bad Finn’s not here, he’d love this,’ and ‘Finn would say such-and-such,’ and ‘I wish I could tell Finn about this,’ and on and on and _on._ ”

Jess was laughing but Poe was rolling his eyes. “You exaggerate as bad as Chewbacca,” he said.

Karé ignored that completely. “But while he does still mope from time to time and mention Finn every five minutes, it’s been a million times better than I’d expected because of you. Though, I could do with less of him nattering on about you now, to be fair.”

“Fuck you,” Poe said, shoving at Karé, but he was blushing so deeply he was nearly as red as the Resistance symbol on his flight helmet. 

“Hey, watch the booze,” Karé said, letting Jess rescue it from her. 

Rey was torn between amusement at watching the three of them interact and this strange, unfamiliar sensation that she couldn’t quite describe, a combination of knowing that Poe talked about her, that he genuinely enjoyed her company, and the fact that he was so embarrassed about it. Because why would he be embarrassed?

Why was she so pleased that he was?

“Poe’s an okay substitute for Finn, I suppose,” Rey said, which made the other two women laugh and Poe blush harder.

“Unless you have to share a ‘fresher with him,” Jess pointed out.

Snatching the bottle so he could have a drink, Poe said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, please,” Jess said, reaching out and tugging at Poe’s hair. “This is what I’m talking about. He’s only got three outfits and one of them’s his flightsuit, but that hair, I’m telling you. That’s another story.”

Poe batted her hand away. “I resent these false accusations.”

Rey said, “Finn says you spend ages on your hair.”

Poe coughed, choking on the liquid he had just swallowed. Karé mostly jokingly patted him on the back.

“I love you,” Jess said to Rey, in all seriousness, to which Rey couldn’t help but smile.

Recovering, Poe said, “It’s natural genetics, you know. My hair. That’s all.”

“Whatever you say, Dameron,” Jess said, uncurling herself from on the bed and standing up. “Lucky me has an early morning flight, so I’m going to bed. Don’t have any fun without me!”

Once she had gone, there was only open space between Rey and Poe. She could have moved closer, it would have made sharing the alcohol easier. She couldn’t quite make herself do it, though, and if anything, Poe only sank closer to Karé and farther from Rey.

She tried not to take it personally. Karé had been Poe’s friend for years. Obviously he would feel more comfortable with her. 

If Poe didn’t want to be near Rey, that was fine. It didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t like Rey wanted to be snuggled up against him anyway; she’d had quite enough of that sort of embarrassment the other morning. 

And if thinking about Finn telling her Poe liked her combined with this no touching thing they had going on combined with Poe’s earlier blush and the fact he talked about her was enough to make Rey’s head spin in confusion, well, that couldn’t be helped. She simply wouldn’t think about it. Any of it.

Instead she would watch Karé drag her knuckles down Poe’s arm while Poe smiled at a story she was telling, his eyes doing that crinkling thing at the corners. She would watch Poe put his lips around the rim of the bottle, tilting his head back to bare the line of his throat as he swallowed. She would lean in a little closer to take the bottle from him, their fingers brushing for an instant, not thinking about her mouth touching where his had just been.

Rey wasn’t thinking about his mouth, or his throat, or his eyes. She wasn’t thinking about how the alcohol was making her feel warm and easy, the way it made the edges of the room seem soft and blurry, the way it made her want to laugh at everything. 

She wasn’t thinking about any of that, and she definitely wasn’t thinking about the way she was tipping forward and catching her hands on Poe, the way he was giving her that smile that went all the way to his eyes, the way his hands were on her waist as he held her up. He smelled like leather and engine oil, like ships, like the hangar bay, like so many of Rey’s favorite things.

And then he wasn’t touching her at all and Karé was saying, “Let’s go, sweetheart, before you get sick on this druk. We should have warned you how strong it is.”

“I can drink,” Rey protested, because she could. On Jakku sometimes it was easier to get weak, watered down alcohol than actual water. She could drink.

“I know,” Karé said, her arm around Rey’s waist, and since when had they been standing? “But you’ve never had anything like this before. It’s not exactly made with humans in mind.”

Poe was still on the bed, propped up on his elbow, watching them. His eyes were half-hooded and Rey had this sudden urge to run her knuckles over his tan skin like Karé did, like Jess did, and she made herself look away. 

“I think I’m ready for bed, actually,” she said to Karé, who chuckled.

“Yeah, me, too,” she said, glancing back at Poe. “He’s half-asleep already.”

Poe half-heartedly waved at them. “I’m not,” he protested, but he gave up the fight of staying upright and slumped all the way down onto his bed. “Maybe a little.”

Rey let Karé walk her back to her quarters, grateful for the assistance as she was afraid otherwise she would have looked like a lunatic stumbling through the corridor. 

Karé stroked a strand of loose hair behind Rey’s ear and said, “You’re sweet. Be gentle with Poe; he bruises easily.”

Rey didn’t really know what she should say so she didn’t say anything. She leaned against her door while Karé walked away and then went inside.

Clothes were more complicated than they should be. Rey fumbled with hers for longer than she felt was appropriate before finally ridding herself of everything but her underwear and leaving it all in a tangle on the floor. She collapsed face-first into her pillow, more awake than she wanted to be.

She knew a way to make herself not be.

If there was one thing Rey knew, it was her own body. She had spent years having nothing and no one to rely on but herself, and so she had come to intimately know her own strengths and limitations. Now, with her Jedi training, Luke was helping her to gain an even deeper consciousness of herself and her place within the galaxy and in relation to the Force.

Rey also knew how to make herself feel good.

She had the idea that many people in the Resistance assumed sex was a foreign concept to her. While it was true that Rey had never been with anyone like that, she knew how to pleasure herself. The nights on Jakku had been long and lonely, after all. Rey had… experimented.

Slipping a hand beneath the band of her underwear, Rey closed her eyes and let herself _feel._

Of course, with her eyes closed, it was hard to stop herself from thinking of all the things she had been trying so hard not to think about.

Like Poe.

She thought of the shape of his mouth and imagined the slide of that mouth over her skin. The brush of her fingers was his, his larger hands moving over her. She imagined the weight of him pressing against her, the puff of his warm breath, the smell of his skin. She pictured him laughing into her neck, kissing her throat, lying between her thighs. In her mind she was threading her hands through his hair, pulling him close, closer, and she bit her lip as she came with a muffled gasp.

Relaxed and boneless, Rey lay on her bed drifting towards sleep, but not without the faint echoing of a voice in the back of her head saying, _oh, kriff, I’m really in it now._

-

In the morning Rey saw Poe in the mess hall for breakfast. He took his tray and sat by her and Rey hoped with everything in her that nothing on her face was saying, _last night I had on orgasm thinking about you in my bed._

“Feeling okay, I hope?” he said.

Rey hummed agreement, not quite daring to look Poe in the eyes.

“Good. Great. Uh, sorry I kinda flaked out on you there, I think I fell asleep as soon as Karé closed the door.”

“Me, too,” Rey said immediately. “I mean, er, in my room. Once I got to my room. Fell right asleep.” Kriff.

Poe was smiling a little. “I’m glad. I was worried we might have irreparably scarred you. Sometimes I forget-- Well, doesn’t matter.”

Somehow Rey was afraid she knew exactly what Poe had been going to say and she didn’t like it at all. “I’m not some stupid little girl, you know.”

“I don’t think that! That’s not what I meant, believe me, I…” Poe was rubbing the back of his neck, looking awkward and bashful. “I definitely do not think that. At all.”

Now Rey felt awkward and bashful and she was afraid she was blushing to match Poe last night. “Okay. Okay, good.”

They ate in silence for a while and then Rey said, “I was going to work through the lightsaber forms before meditation but we could spar, if you want? If you’re not busy?”

Poe looked at her over his raised fork. “You’re awfully eager to knock me on my ass again.”

“I thought you liked it?”

“Touché,” he said, laughing. “I’ve got an hour, let’s do it.”

So they finished eating and headed over to the gym. Rey had already been dressed for activity but Poe took a minute to change out of his heavy pants and boots.

It felt different this time, somehow. Rey had thought maybe this would help, would remind her that nothing had changed, that nothing had to change, but she quickly realized putting herself in the position of getting Poe’s hands all over her only hours after she had been fantasizing about Poe’s hands, well, all over her, was a very, very bad idea.

She was overly conscious of Poe’s proximity and of the way his muscles moved beneath his skin. When a bead of sweat trickled down from his hairline Rey had to make herself twist away from him so she would stop thinking of how much she wanted to lick it right off his skin. They traded blows and this time it felt more like a dance than a fight, like they were testing boundaries, discovering how to push and when to pull back, toying with each other precariously at the edge. 

When Rey knocked Poe onto his back she was hyper aware of the harsh heaviness of his breathing and the way he was curling his fingers at her waist in an obvious effort not to actually hold her without being willing to completely let go. She knew if she rolled her hips she would tip this game right over that precipice into something new and dangerous from which there would be no going back.

Poe’s eyes were large and dark and his lean body was solid between Rey’s thighs. She knew that she was the one in control, here. She didn’t quite know what Poe wanted but she knew that he would follow her lead.

Sweat rolled down the back of Rey’s neck. She thought of Poe’s mouth on her skin.

Rey stood up and held out her hand. “Again?”

Poe accepted. 

They started the game over. 

-

“Anakin,” Rey said, sitting on her bed, hoping he was listening.

He was. He slowly phased into view, standing in the middle of her room. He smiled at her. “Hello, Rey.”

“Hi,” Rey said, almost losing the courage to ask him what she had wanted to ask. She had briefly considered going to Luke or to Leia but something had held her back. Anakin seemed… easier. Which was likely odd given that he had died thirty years ago, but nevertheless.

“Something bothering you?” Anakin asked, kindly giving her an opening.

Rey exhaled. She could do this. “How do you know when you want to be friends with someone and when you want something… else?”

Anakin seemed amused but not in a mocking way. It was almost like he was amused at his own expense rather than Rey’s. Self-deprecating, maybe, or wry. “There are a lot of people who would tell you that I am the last person who should be giving a young person the relationship talk.”

“Who else should I ask, then?” Rey hated the way she almost wanted to cry, the thick feeling in her throat. She had never had a mother to tell her these sorts of things, nor a father. There had been no one.

She was still too afraid to find out if maybe that wasn’t the case anymore.

She was too afraid to test whether she was wrong.

Anakin sat down next to her, adjusting his robes. “Don’t misunderstand. I’m happy you asked me. Is this about Poe?”

Rey could only nod her head, too embarrassed to speak.

“I know it sounds stupid, or like a cliché, but you just _know._ It’s a difficult feeling to put into words. When I fell in love with Padmé, I…” Anakin was smiling, the look in his eyes somehow seeming far away, like he was lost in a memory. “Who am I kidding, I loved Padmé from the moment I saw her.”

“I didn’t feel that way about Poe.”

“That’s okay, too. Sometimes the greatest love can grow out of friendship. It gives you a foundation to build upon.”

Rey tugged at a strand of hair that had slipped free of her buns, frustrated. “But I don’t _know._ I never said I loved him. I care about him; he _is_ my friend. But maybe that’s all he is.”

“I don’t think you really believe that,” Anakin said gently. “If you did, you wouldn’t have needed to ask me.”

Rey didn’t have an answer to that.

“Rey,” Anakin said, getting her to look at him. “Every relationship, friendship or otherwise, is made of a series of steps, of choices and decisions. Choosing to spend your time with them rather than someone else, the decision to trust them with something private. Sometimes you don’t even realize you’re doing it, but you are. Every step you take, every choice you make, causes that relationship to grow and to change. Your friendship with Poe is no different. Sometimes we just… think too much. We try to force things. I should know.”

“So you’re saying that I shouldn’t do anything at all?” That didn’t seem right.

“No, I’m…” Anakin hesitated. “I’m just saying, take it step by step. Your relationship is different today than it was yesterday, and it will be different still tomorrow. Trust in yourself and everything will turn out all right.”

Rey couldn’t help but to match Anakin’s smile, wanting desperately to hug him. She settled for staying there, basking in the warmth of his affection.

-

The night was calm and breezy, the sky clear so the stars were bright overhead. Rey walked out in her jacket and found Poe on the ground behind the hangar bay, hands behind his head.

Rey laid down beside him. “Karé said you were out here.”

“You were looking for me?”

“No, I just… She said you were in a weird mood.”

Poe chuckled lightly. “Just been thinking, that’s all.”

“About what?”

He didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “My mom was a pilot, did you know that?”

“In the Rebellion, right?”

Though Rey couldn’t actually see him, she could sense Poe’s nod. “She was the one who first taught me to fly. Took me up in her A-wing. I thought… It was the most amazing feeling, all that possibility. She was the reason I became a pilot.”

“She must be proud of you.”

“She died a long time ago,” Poe said, but before Rey could try to make up for that blunder he continued, “How did you learn to fly, Rey?”

Rey shrugged. “Taught myself, mostly. On Jakku, I found this old flight simulator. I used to use it for hours, running sims over and over.”

“You learned to fly like _that_ from an outdated flight simulator?” Poe sounded impressed rather than disbelieving. “And here we are, spending money on fancy academies and instructors to get only half as good as you. If that.”

“Well,” Rey said generously, “I think you’re a little bit better than half as good as me.”

Poe laughed, bright and sharp. “I’d say the New Republic Navy would have killed to have you but I think in actual practice you would have failed as spectacularly as I did.”

“Nice of you to say so.”

“It was a compliment, actually. You have… too much heart to have sat back and done nothing while the First Order gained power.”

“But too much sense to go flying straight into a First Order armada.” Rey had heard that story.

“Yes, I’ve seen how good you are at planning ahead.”

“Better than you, not that that takes much.”

“General Organa appreciates my daredevil nature,” Poe said, which was probably true. “Still, I point to the entirety of your excursions with Finn as evidence that you’re no better than me. As exhibit A, your escape from Jakku. That was the first time you flew an actual starship, wasn’t it?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then how exactly was it?”

“I flew a ship once, once before that,” Rey said, the words coming out of her slowly. She had never told anyone this story and it wasn’t something she chose to think about a lot. “I found it, after a sandstorm, and I spent weeks and weeks trying to get it operational. Only someone found me, figured out what I was doing. I… I let them help me, we did it together. I wanted to bring it to Unkar Plutt, trade it to him. It would have fed me-- fed us-- for… Well, for a long time.”

“So what happened?”

“We finished, and I flew it right into Niima Outpost. I was so…” Rey swallowed, moved on. “I went to Plutt but the others, they… They took that ship and they flew it straight off Jakku.”

“They left you there? They stole your ship and left you there?” Poe sounded completely outraged, like he couldn’t fathom a betrayal on that scale. He probably couldn’t. Poe was loyal down to his bones.

He also couldn’t understand what life on Jakku was like, not truly. Poe with his loving family and his memories of his mother, a childhood spent safe and secure where he could dream of starships and adventure, never needing to worry where his next meal was going to come from.

Rey couldn’t begrudge anyone wanting to leave Jakku.

“I wasn’t angry. They’d told me that was what they’d do. I just wasn’t listening. I wanted that ship to trade, so I could stay. All they wanted to do was leave Jakku behind.”

Rey waited for Poe to tell her that she had been stupid. She waited for him to tell her that she had been naïve, that she shouldn’t have trusted them, that she should have gone with them.

But Poe didn’t say any of those things.

He said, “I’ve had a lot of people tell me over the years that things were ‘for the best’, or that everything ‘works out the way it should in the end’. Mostly I think that’s druk, but I think… If you’d left there wouldn’t have been anyone to help Beebee-Ate, or Finn. Maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe the Starkiller Base would have destroyed all of us by now, maybe Luke would still be on Ahch-To. And… and maybe I never would have met you.”

“What a tragedy that would have been for you,” Rey said to forestall anything sappy or embarrassing coming out of her mouth, to hide how affected she was by the idea that Poe thought she was so important, that he felt her presence in his life was so important.

“Who else would there be to tell me when I’m being stupid?” Poe asked, and Rey could feel his gaze on the side of her face.

She turned towards him, smiling a little. “I think most people here are happy to tell you that.”

“Fair point,” Poe agreed. But he was looking at her like she mattered more than them, like she was special, like he…

Poe reached for Rey’s hand, interlacing their fingers together. His palm was calloused like she had thought it would be, all that time spent handling flight sticks and blasters, but his skin was warm and dry and his touch felt grounding somehow, like a tether to where she wanted to be.

Rey tilted her head back up towards the sky, her eyes on the stars and Poe’s hand firmly in hers.


	5. Chapter 5

Finn returned to base, no worse for wear. It took less than a day for him to catch on that something had changed, that whatever was between Rey and Poe wasn’t the same as it had been when Finn had left. 

“When I told you to spend time with Poe,” he said that evening, “I honestly had no idea you’d take my advice so literally.”

“Don’t know what you mean,” Rey said.

“Like hell you don’t. If I’d been gone three months I doubt either of you would have much cared.”

“Is that jealousy I detect?” 

“No, I’m just surprised, that’s all. I’ve been waiting for you guys to figure out you’re made for each other for ages but I guess all you needed was my extended absence.”

“We’re not made for each other,” Rey said, rolling her eyes. “This isn’t a romance novel.”

“Wouldn’t know it by the way you two are making eyes at each other,” Finn teased.

“We are not!”

“Sure nothing happened while I wasn’t here to chaperone you two?”

Rey flushed, which only made Finn laugh.

“About damn time,” he said.

“Nothing happened,” Rey insisted. Nothing Poe knew about, anyway, and certainly nothing Finn needed to know about. 

Finn shrugged. “If you say so.”

-

At lunch time Rey sat with Finn and Poe, watching Luke and Leia where they sat a few tables down. Poe was telling a story that Finn evidently thought was hilarious but Rey had lost the plot somewhere near the start. She was watching the way Luke and Leia bent their heads together, the way Luke would touch the back of Leia’s hand every so often, the way they were barely speaking but still seemed to be having a conversation anyway. 

It made her feel sad and she didn’t know why. She should have felt happy for them; they clearly loved each other dearly. But all she could think about was the long years of their separation, the fact that there was a conspicuous empty place at their table where Han should have been.

It wasn’t right.

“I don’t want that to happen to us,” Rey said aloud, startling both Finn and Poe.

They looked at her, confusedly following the direction of her gaze before focusing on Rey again.

“What?” Finn asked.

“Promise me we’ll always be together,” Rey said, feeling desperate. “Promise me we’ll be all right. All of us.”

Rey had already been alone. She couldn’t do it again.

She wouldn’t.

Poe was watching her like maybe he understood. He didn’t say anything. 

He never made promises he couldn’t keep.

“Of course you’re stuck with us,” Finn said, squeezing Rey’s knee beneath the table. “Couldn’t get rid of us if you tried.” 

Rey looked at Poe but he wouldn’t say even that much, wouldn’t make light of it, wouldn’t jokingly reassure her. He wouldn’t promise. He wouldn’t promise they would be okay when he knew that maybe they wouldn’t be, no matter what he did.

“Won’t leave you if I can help it,” he said finally.

Maybe that would have to be good enough.

-

The knock on Rey’s door was so light that she almost thought she imagined it. She had been lying on her bed with her datapad but she got up to see who was outside.

It was Poe. He was running a hand through his hair but he stopped when he saw her, bringing his hand back down by his side. “I’m sorry, I know it’s late, is it too late? Did I wake you? I’m sorry, I should just go, sorry I bothered you.” He was already turning to leave.

“Poe,” Rey said, getting him to look at her. “I wasn’t asleep. You can come in.”

He did so and then stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. He looked rumpled, like maybe he had been sleeping and then got up again, thrown back on his clothes from the day and bypassed the mirror. His hair was as messy as it got from his flight helmet, though perhaps not as sweaty.

Rey hesitated, wondering what he wanted, and then they both spoke at the same time. 

“Were you--”

“I couldn’t--”

They both stopped and Rey gestured at Poe. “You first?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Poe mumbled, rubbing the back of his head. 

Honestly Rey was surprised that would have led him here and not to Karé or any of his other friends. It felt silly to be touched but she was a bit. “You can sit, if you want,” she offered.

Poe did so, perching awkwardly on the end of Rey’s bed. She held back a smile and sat there herself, making herself comfortable and encouraging Poe to settle. Eventually he relaxed a little and sat cross-legged facing her, picking at a loose thread in the seam of his pants. 

Unsure of whether she should say something and what she should say if she did, Rey waited for Poe to speak instead. She simply sat there watching him and it was less awkward than maybe it should have been. 

Eventually Poe said, “I was thinking about Ren.”

When he left it at that, seeming disinclined to continue, Rey said, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

He was looking at her now, dark eyes searching her face, something needy in his expression. “I thought… I thought you might understand.” He stopped again, hesitating.

Rey couldn’t help but think of their fight from what felt like a lifetime ago, when they had let Kylo Ren come between them and put a dent in their friendship. Then she had felt sure that Poe didn’t understand her at all.

They had come a long way.

“You can still feel him in your head, sometimes, even though he isn’t there,” Rey said, and Poe nodded.

“Crazy, right? I know it’s just me, I know I’m being stupid. But it makes it all… come back.”

“It isn’t stupid. I think about him, too. I remember what… So then I think about kicking him in the face.”

Poe laughed, startled but genuine. “I imagine that must help.”

“Oh, absolutely. You should try it. You did shoot him, after all.”

“I did. It was very cathartic,” Poe said, with a slight measure of amusement that faded swiftly. “You know, I, uh, I do try to remember things like that. I think about why I’m here and what we’re fighting for, everything we do to stop them. It’s just… I joined the Resistance because I believe in the New Republic and because the First Order can’t be allowed to get away with their actions. People died so that we could grow up free and the idea that we could throw that away within a generation makes me sick.”

Whenever Rey listened to Poe talk about the Resistance or the First Order she realized how little she truly knew. On Jakku she had seemed so isolated from everything but Poe had grown up in the midst of the New Republic, had flown for the Navy. He was filled with ideals and a vision of how things should be, and he had witnessed firsthand how it all was failing.

“Well,” Rey said, “you did blow up their superweapon. So that’s something.”

Poe cracked a smile. “I did, fair enough. Too bad Ren wasn’t still there when it blew.”

“Do you know what I think about when I think about Kylo Ren?” Rey asked, feeling brave. She felt like she could trust Poe with anything and it would be okay. “I think about how we could be the same.”

“The same?” Poe repeated, his eyebrows creasing together. “Rey, you’re nothing like him.”

 _He is my family,_ Rey thought. “I know that Kylo Ren wasn’t always a bad person. Once his name was Ben, and he probably laughed and smiled and cried just like everyone else. He had people who loved him. I’m afraid I could end up like him, I could change, I could become something so unrecognizable.” She swallowed, pausing, and Poe kept quiet so she could finish. “Sometimes I’m afraid of the darkness in me. I have… all this anger, and sometimes I just want to make the First Order _pay._ I want to make Kylo Ren hurt for what he’s done. I know that isn’t how I should be, but it is.”

“It’s about control,” Poe said. “You control your anger. Ren doesn’t. He uses it so he can control others, so he can do whatever he wants, whatever Snoke wants, no matter who it hurts. You could never be like that. Rey, you have this light in you, don’t you know that? You’re the-- you have the most beautiful--”

He stopped, his face flushing red, and Rey wanted desperately to know what he was keeping himself from saying.

“You’re not like him,” Poe said, and they both knew that wasn’t what he had been going to say.

“I think Kylo Ren is my cousin,” Rey blurted out.

Poe blinked. “What? Your cousin? You think… You think _Luke_ …”

“I think Luke is my father. I think Ben Solo or Organa or whatever his name was, I think he was my cousin.”

“Kriffing hell,” Poe breathed. “Why?”

“When I went to Tatooine. I think that’s what my vision was leading me to. The truth of my family.”

“But Luke hasn’t told you?”

Rey shook her head. “I think he’s afraid.”

“Of what?”

“That I won’t forgive him.”

Poe’s expression softened in comprehension. “For leaving you.”

“Yes. But I… I don’t know how to explain it but I just feel like it doesn’t matter anymore. I have him. Why would I give that up, for anything? Maybe it’s weird that I’m not mad, but I don’t want to be. I don’t need any more anger. I have enough.”

The anger she held for Kylo Ren, the anger that was maybe just part of her, part of the Skywalker legacy. Her grandfather was Darth Vader. No matter what Poe said, Rey couldn’t rid herself of the fear that she could turn out just like him, just like her cousin.

“It’s not weird,” Poe said, reaching to squeeze Rey’s hand. “You just want a family.”

“Plus you and Finn,” Rey said before she could stop herself. “You’re my family, too.”

Poe smiled at her, still holding her hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “Always.”

Rey felt better having said it, having told someone of her suspicions and of her fears. She was glad that she had Poe. She hoped she could have him forever; she hoped he would never leave.

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, though,” Poe said. “You’re a Skywalker, which makes you related to Kylo Ren. You and your cousin tried to murder each other. That’s messed up.”

Rey snorted and then she was laughing, and then she couldn’t stop. Her life was ridiculous. Why was this her life? 

Poe had started laughing, too, mostly seeming like he couldn’t keep a straight face when presented with Rey’s meltdown. “I’m just saying,” he said.

“Stars,” Rey gasped through her giggles, leaning forward with her hand pressed to Poe’s knee as she tried to regain control of herself. When she had calmed a bit she raised her eyes, noticing how close Poe was, the curve of his mouth, the laugh lines around his eyes. She didn’t move back.

He could kiss her, if he wanted. Rey thought she might want him to, maybe.

Seeming to come to the same conclusions Rey had, Poe sat there in her space for only a moment longer before drawing away, swinging his legs out towards the side of the bed as if he was going to stand up. 

“Thank you,” he said, and that was it, he was going to leave, and Rey was hit with a fervent desire for him not to go.

Before she knew what she was doing, she was saying, “You can stay here, if you want? Sleep here, I mean. If you’re having trouble sleeping. If you think it might help.”

His eyes widening, Poe didn’t say anything for a bit. Then he turned more towards Rey and said, “Uh, I don’t want to intrude, I…”

“You’re not intruding. I… I’d like you to stay. Maybe I’ll sleep better, too.”

After another few seconds of hesitation, Poe said, “Okay.”

“Good. Great!” Rey didn’t let herself think about what she was doing, arranging for Poe to _sleep in her bed._ Instead she said, “I’m just gonna change, if you could…”

Poe stared at her. “Oh! Um, yeah, sorry, I won’t look.” He turned fully around until he was facing the wall, covering his eyes for good measure.

Rey bit back a smile and then shimmied out of her clothes, changing quickly into a shirt and pants that were comfortable for sleeping. “It’s okay now, you can turn around.”

When he did so, Poe chuckled. “You realize that’s my shirt, don’t you?”

“What?” Rey glanced down at the over-large, soft shirt that was her favorite. “I thought it was Finn’s.”

“It was, but before that it was mine. You guys just like stealing all my stuff, I think.”

“Only because you give it to us.”

“That’s fair,” Poe agreed.

Rey’s gaze traveled down Poe’s body and back up to his face. “Do you want to take off your pants or something? Doesn’t look that comfortable to sleep in.”

He shrugged. “Not like I haven’t slept in them before. But, uh, if you don’t mind?”

Realizing that now she was inviting Poe to sleep in his underwear in her bed, Rey blushed. But she said, “It’s okay. I won’t look.” She turned around, though it was probably a futile gesture considering Poe didn’t have anything to put on and she was going to see him in his underwear no matter what. 

“It’s as safe as it’ll be,” Poe said, so Rey faced him again, unable to stop the direction of her gaze from falling immediately to below Poe’s waist before she raised it again.

He had left his shirt on, holding his balled up pants in front of himself, a faint pinkness rising in his cheeks. At least Rey wasn’t the only one embarrassed by this whole situation. It was kind of cute that Poe was, too. He was sweet.

“Bed?” Rey suggested. She made herself look only at Poe’s face.

Poe nodded, gesturing to her. “Ladies first. Plus it’s your bed.”

So Rey moved past him, getting under the covers on one side. Poe followed suit and then they just laid there, side by side, as much space between them as they could get without someone toppling out the side. Rey was holding herself stiffly, hardly daring to breathe, overly conscious of Poe next to her, Poe in his underwear in her bed.

What was she _doing_?

After a while, Poe said, “This is awkward, right? It’s awkward.”

Rey laughed, immediately feeling more at ease. “A little.” She raised her arm from where it had been lying by her side and hoped Poe would take the invitation.

He did. He scooted closer to her, pressing his cheek to her shoulder and draping an arm over her waist. Rey let her arm back down, settling it around Poe. She wanted to stroke her fingers through his hair but she didn’t quite dare.

Instead she laid there with Poe curled against her and closed her eyes, breathing in, out, in, out, focusing on the cadence of her own breath. This was probably worse and she still didn’t know what in the hell she was doing, but she fell asleep with Poe’s hair brushing her chin and his warm body pressed to hers.

-

When Rey awoke in the morning it was to Poe crawling out of bed, stumbling as he got caught momentarily in the sheets. His eyes met Rey’s and he whispered, “Sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Rey shook her head, her gaze still bleary and unfocused. “It’s okay. Where are you going?”

“Early meeting. I wasn’t going to wake you. You can see how successful I was.”

“It’s okay,” she said again, stretching her limbs out. “You slept well?”

“Yes. Thanks.” Poe’s gaze flickered from Rey’s face down to where the sheet was slipping around her and then back to her face.“Actually I think I haven’t slept that well in months.” He did look good, relaxed and content. His hair was in disarray and his cheek was creased from the pillow and Rey couldn’t help smiling at him.

“I’m glad,” she said.

Poe was still leaning over her and it occurred to her that she could lift her hand and stroke his hair, touch his cheek, pull him down, kiss his mouth. Rey felt her breathing quicken as she thought of it because she _wanted_ that. She thought Poe might let her. He was looking at her like -

And then he said, “I should go. Should probably hop in the ‘fresher quick first.”

“Right,” Rey said, and the moment was broken as he moved back a little.

As if to soften the loss, Poe suggested, “Maybe we can have lunch?”

“I’d like that.”

“Great.” Poe took Rey’s hand and actually kissed her knuckles, holding on for just a second longer than he needed to. It was sort of silly but sweet. Like Poe himself, really. “See you then.”

He found his pants where he had left them on Rey’s desk chair and pulled them on, bending over and providing Rey with a view she wasn’t quite strong enough to resist. When he looked towards her again he seemed to realize what he’d done, that endearing blush rising in his cheeks again. “I’m not sure if I should apologize or say you’re welcome.”

Laughing, Rey said, “Oh, get out of here.”

He left with a smirk and a wave. Rey scrubbed her hands over her face. Damn. She was so screwed, wasn’t she?

-

Sweat formed on Rey’s brow as she concentrated, lifting another rock from the ground and floating it over to the pyramid she was building. As it settled with a light clanging sound, a flash of Poe’s face from that morning swept through her mind, Poe’s sweet smile, his messy hair. The rocks clattered to the ground.

Rey huffed in frustration. She would have to start over. Again.

“That’s enough,” Luke said.

Rey looked to him. “I could--”

“You’re distracted, Rey.”

Sighing, Rey sank down onto the ground, sitting cross-legged. “I’m sorry, Master Luke. I know I should clear my mind and focus on the Force but sometimes it’s difficult.”

“Anything you’d like to talk about?”

Rey’s cheeks burned. She couldn’t imagine anything she would like to do less than talk to Luke about Poe Dameron. “I don’t think so.”

Luke sat next to her anyway. “Poe is a good man, Rey.” 

Wincing, Rey said, “Is it that obvious?”

Luke smiled at her. “If it helps, there might be a couple of droids who haven’t noticed.”

“Oh, no,” Rey groaned, wanting to sink into the floor. 

“Price of being famous. At least you don’t have a crush on your sister. Try living that down.”

Rey couldn’t help but giggle, which she imagined had been Luke’s aim. “You don’t think it’s a bad idea?”

As ever, Luke coaxed Rey’s opinion out of her before providing her with his own. “Should I?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think it is.” Most of the time. Maybe she should just stick to friendship; it was easier. Less complicated. “Sometimes I think I should focus on my training and leave all the rest.”

“Is that what you want? To be a Jedi and nothing else?”

“Well, no.” Rey wanted Poe in her life, she knew that. She wanted Finn in her life. She _needed_ them. It was only that figuring out how she could do that wasn’t something she had ever had to do before.

“When my father was young, in the days of the Republic, the Jedi Council forbid attachments. But that didn’t work, and that’s not how I want to do things. I’m not going to tell you that you can’t be with someone you love, someone who makes you happy, someone who gives you something to fight for.” Luke sounded so earnest as he spoke, as if he had never meant anything more than he meant this. “Love all you want, Rey, and love who you want. My father found himself again through love of me. My sister makes me stronger and she always has. I want that for you, too.”

Rey had the sense that Luke wanted to say something else but was stopping himself. She could feel the affection radiating out from him, the hopes he had for her, and the love, so much love. 

She remembered the young man on Tatooine with all of his big dreams and she remembered herself on Jakku, sitting outside her AT-AT with an old dirty flight helmet on her head. She remembered Leia embracing her like a mother, united in grief. She remembered Anakin, so filled with anger and passion and love.

“Are you my father?” Rey asked.

“Rey--” Luke sounded choked.

It was all the answer she needed.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Luke’s mind was a jumble of emotions, fear, anxiety, love, regret, an overwhelming mix that he wasn’t even trying to hide. “I wasn’t sure you would want to know me after what I did. After I left you.”

Once, Rey might have been angry. All those years left waiting, hoping, not wanting to believe that she had been abandoned. Part of Rey wanted to be angry at Luke. But the rest of her loved him and just wanted a family, like she had told Poe. She thought of Leia momentarily losing control of her thoughts; she thought of Leia saying, _it was for your protection._

Rey wanted answers, but now she knew that she could actually get them. 

“I spent my whole life longing for you, dreaming of you,” Rey said. “You’re all I ever wanted. I’m not going to give that up now.”

Clearing his throat before he could speak, Luke said, “I wish I had been better for you.”

“I wish for a lot of things,” Rey said softly. “Will you tell me about my mother?”

Luke held his hand out, palm up, and Rey pressed her hand into his. “I’ll tell you everything,” he said.


	6. Chapter 6

Somehow everything changed and yet nothing at all seemed to change. Rey had already loved Luke, and he had already loved her; now it was just out in the open. The family Rey had been building since leaving Jakku simply turned out to actually be the family she had been dreaming of all those years. 

She almost walked into Leia as she turned a corner, catching herself at the last second. “Sorry, General.”

Leia was smiling, just a slight tilt of her lips. “I think you can call me Leia, don’t you?”

And Rey didn’t know what she was doing but without thinking she had reached out, clutching Leia in a tight hug. They stood there for the longest time and Rey didn’t know why but she was crying, tears leaking out of her eyes.

She wiped at her face as she pulled back. “Did Han know?”

“He suspected.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t--” Rey stopped, unable to say it, not even sure of what she had been trying to say.

Leia raised her hand to Rey’s cheek. “No more regrets,” she said.

Rey nodded firmly. “No more regrets.”

-

Poe walked out of Rey’s room one evening, his spot on the bed almost immediately being replaced by the ghostly figure of a young man with a mess of thick curls. Anakin. Rey saw him more and more often now, like he felt free to be with her now that it was all out in the open.

“I like your boyfriend,” he said.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“He should be. I like the way he flies.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “You would.” Obi-Wan, long-suffering even now, liked to tell her stories about the daring, reckless pilot Anakin had been. ‘Insane’ was a word he used often. _He put all the gray in my hair,_ Obi-Wan was fond of saying.

“I like his smart mouth, too. He fits right in with the Skywalkers. Actually, are you sure he isn’t one of us? We do have a history of inappropriate feelings of intimacy.”

“Stars, no!” Rey exclaimed. “He’s not a Skywalker! Besides, Luke doesn’t have much of a mouth on him, so I’m not sure your theory holds.”

Anakin’s smile was tinged with sadness. “I bequeathed that legacy to my daughter, it seems.”

Sometimes Rey wished she could touch him, lay her hand on his for comfort. “Do you ever talk to her? Like this?”

“I try to keep my distance. It’s what she wants. Leia’s real father was Bail Organa, not me.”

Bail Organa, who had died on Alderaan with his wife and millions of innocent people. “Maybe she wants--”

“She doesn’t,” Anakin interrupted. “Especially not after Ben.”

“Do you ever see Kylo Ren? Ben?” The names still seemed distinctly different in Rey’s mind, the boy who had been Ben, her cousin, and Kylo Ren, the monster he had turned into. She wasn’t sure Ben existed anymore.

“I’ve tried. Snoke’s hold over him is so-- I can’t get close to him. Not close enough for him to listen.”

“But you keep trying.”

“I owe him that at least. I owe Leia that, and Luke.”

Rey didn’t say that she thought it was pointless. She had had a lifetime of holding onto pointless hopes, only they had turned out to be not so pointless after all.

Maybe Anakin’s hopes would pay off, too.

-

“Wow,” Rey said, licking a bit of icing off her finger. “This is amazing.”

“I know, right? Who knew Poe actually knew his way around a kitchen?” Finn raised another forkful of cake to his mouth.

“I hope he didn’t actually intend on eating any of it himself.” 

“If he had I doubt he would have left it with us.”

True enough, Rey knew. Poe knew better than to leave anything edible alone with Finn and Rey. 

Finn was looking at her with a strange solemnity, like he had something on his mind that he was determined to say. Uh oh.

Rey didn’t have long to wait to learn what it was.

“You know you’re my friend, right, Rey?”

“Of course I do.”

“And Poe’s my friend, too.”

“Obviously.”

“So if you two were to…” Finn waved one hand vaguely in the air. “I’d be happy for you.”

Rey narrowed her eyes. “If we were to what?”

“You know what I mean.”

The bad thing was that Rey was fairly certain she did know and there was no use pretending she didn’t. “I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”

“You asked me once if I was in love with Poe. I told you no, and that was the truth.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Then I hope you weren’t using me as an excuse.”

“An excuse for what?”

“For not moving forward with Poe.”

Rey’s ears were burning. She was so red, she could feel it. “That’s stupid. Why would I do that? If I want to do something with Poe, I’ll do it, and if I don’t want to, then I won’t. I don’t need an excuse.”

“Really? Because I thought you might be afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Being vulnerable.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’re being ridiculous.”

Finn shrugged. “I don’t think I am.”

“What the frag does Poe have to do with me being vulnerable?”

“You’d be giving him the opportunity to hurt you.”

Rey really needed Finn to stop looking at her like that, like she was something breakable, like he was worried about her. “And I suppose you know all about that sort of thing?”

“No, I don’t, which is why I know how you feel. Because I’d be scared, too.”

“I’m not scared.”

“Okay,” Finn said, agreeing easily, though Rey didn’t think he actually believed her.“But if you were, I’d tell you that that’s okay. And then I’d tell you that Poe is probably scared, too.”

“Why would Poe be scared?”

“Because he’s in love with you,” Finn said, like it was obvious.

Rey choked on her cake, coughing. She pushed the plate away. “Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to. I think everyone on base knows, except maybe for you.”

Rey sat there, hearing Finn’s words in her head over and over.

_He’s in love with you._

_I think everyone on base knows, except maybe for you._

Poe was in love with her. He loved her.

But what did that mean?

_You’re the-- you have the most beautiful--_

Sweet, awkward Poe who wouldn’t touch her for the longest time, who snuck her extra food and told her things he never told anyone else. All those moments Rey had wanted to kiss him and maybe he had wanted that, too. So why hadn’t he done it?

“I still don’t know what he’s got to be afraid of,” Rey said.

“Come on, Rey,” Finn said, like he was saying, _use your head_. “That it won’t work, that he’ll mess it up, that he’ll lose your friendship, that you don’t love him like he loves you… Should I go on?”

“No,” Rey said quietly. That was quite enough.

“Are you in love with Poe?”

“I don’t know,” Rey said without thinking. “I’m not sure I’d know. I’ve never been in love. How does it feel?” Anakin had said he’d just known, but Rey didn’t. Rey didn’t know.

“I’ve never been in love, either.”

Both at a loss, they sat silently for a few moments. Yet again Rey wished for the simplicity of life on Jakku, if not for that life itself.

Then Finn said, “Maybe if you talked about him it would help? Help you figure out how you feel, I mean.”

“Talk about him how?” Rey said, flustered. “He’s… He’s Poe.” She felt like that should be enough. He was just Poe. 

“Yes, he’s Poe, and you’re Rey, and maybe someday you’ll be the Skywalker-Damerons and you can have stupidly pretty, stupidly reckless babies together,” Finn said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, stop it,” Rey said, shoving him. “No one said anything about babies!” Ugh. Rey couldn’t think of anything she wanted less right now.

“All right, no babies,” Finn agreed with a grin. “We are anti-babies.”

Ignoring him, Rey let herself think out loud. “I love you.”

“Sure,” Finn said.

“But when I think about Poe, it… it doesn’t seem the same. It’s harder to say. So does that mean I’m not in love with him?”

But she did want to kiss him. She didn’t want to kiss Finn. Perhaps she was in lust only, except that felt wrong, too.

“Why is it different?” Finn asked.

“Because he… He makes me feel confused, like everything’s a jumble in my head. I’ve told him things that I’ve never…” Rey bit her lip, trying to sort out her words. “I trust him with me, with everything about me, and he makes my stomach feel like… like it’s turning inside out, and my heart races, and I just want to be near him, and tell him stupid things about my day, and… What?”

Finn was just watching her, this easy, amused smile on his face. “I don’t know, that sounds a lot like love to me.”

“Maybe it is,” Rey said, and she smiled slowly to match Finn.

-

Even if Rey was in love with Poe, that didn’t mean she knew what to do about it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to do anything about it. She liked the status quo. True, she sometimes felt her mind wandering in less than pure directions, thinking of Poe’s hands and his mouth and –

But she didn’t necessarily _need_ that. She only wanted it.

Of course, if Poe wanted that, too, which Finn seemed to think he did, then maybe she _should_ do something about it.

Or she could wait for Poe to do something about it. That seemed best.

Except Poe seemed disinclined to do anything, either. 

“Just tell him how nice you think he looks and if he has half a brain he’ll take care of the rest,” Anakin advised.

“Splendid plan,” Obi-Wan said. “Rey, don’t listen to him. He has no idea what he’s talking about.”

“I was married; I think I know a little bit about these things.”

“Illegally married, I might point out.”

“I prefer ‘secretly’, actually. And who should she listen to then, you? Because--”

“Stop!” Rey interrupted. “Honestly I’m not inclined to take advice from either of you.”

“Well, don’t take any from your father,” Anakin told her.

Obi-Wan inclined his head because of course that was what they would agree on.

“Stars,” Rey said, getting up, holding out her hand warningly as she left. “I’m going to do this my way. Don’t even think about following me!”

Honestly Rey had no idea what she was doing. She had no plan. Though that was pretty standard, actually. She was with Anakin and Obi-Wan one minute and then she was in the hangar bay, saying hello to BB-8 and watching Poe’s face light up as he saw her.

He wiped his hands on the back of his pants and approached her. “Rey! I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

Rey tried to look careless and unconcerned, like the whole thing had been a happy accident. “Just, uh, wanted to see you.” Crap! Why had she said that? So much for being cavalier about it.

But Poe was looking at her like… like… Okay, did he always look at her like that? Was she just reading into it because she couldn’t stop hearing _he’s in love with you_ repeat on an endless loop in her head?

He was standing there in his dirty pants, arms bare in a sleeveless shirt, just watching her, the skin near his eyes creasing, and Rey was going to say something, she was. She was going to talk to him and it was going to be intelligent and they were going to do something about this, and then she was leaning forward and before she knew it her mouth was pressed to Poe’s.

Poe didn’t do much of anything except stand there for long enough that Rey could think, _damn, damn, damn, what am I doing, why did I do this, I’m such an idiot, he’s going to think I’m such a -_

And then she felt a building pressure as Poe kissed her back. He’d raised one hand to her cheek and the other to her hip, his fingers digging into the cloth of her pants, and he was kissing her, and it was nice, it was really, really nice, and then he drew back.

Poe looked at her, the smallest of flushes in his cheeks, and his mouth looked wetter than it usually did. It was incredibly distracting.

Rey felt warm, all of a sudden, and she wasn’t entirely sure why - if she was embarrassed, or sorry he’d stopped, or just because she’d kissed Poe ( _she’d kissed Poe_ ), but she felt too warm and self-conscious. “Um, I have a thing, so, uh, I’m going to go.” She backed up, Poe’s hands falling away from her, and tried to stop looking at his mouth. 

For a few seconds Poe just let her go, and then he seemed to come back to himself. “Rey,” he said. “Rey, don’t go. We should--”

Except whatever he thought they should do, Rey was certain she didn’t want to deal with right now. She spun around and started walking quickly away. “No, I’ll see you later!”

“Rey! Rey, come on!”

Rey ignored him.

-

Rey successfully avoided Poe for four days. It was something of a challenge considering how integrated he had become in her life without her really realizing it so she was proud of herself for managing it. If pride was the right word. It helped that they were both busy, not often with the same things.

If Leia would just send one of them on a mission, that would be perfect. Or Luke could decide it was time for another extended training trip, that would work, too. What was that planet he had mentioned? Dagobah? Dagobah sounded great right about now.

Finn, though, was clearly getting suspicious. Rey supposed that stuffing her face with what was left on her plate on three separate occasions just so she could have a reasonable excuse to leave before Poe walked over with his tray might have been a bit too obvious.

All things considered, Rey shouldn’t have been surprised when Finn brought the subject up one evening while she was in his room, ostensibly reading. (She wasn’t reading.)

Finn said, “Poe keeps asking me if you’re okay and also if you’re upset with him. Are you? And why does he not like my response that he should ask you instead of me?”

“Don’t know,” Rey mumbled, trying to appear deeply interested in her holonovel.

It was terrible and trashy and extremely difficult to fake enthusiasm in. 

“Rey.” Finn was using his serious voice.

Rey pretended not to hear him. It could have been an amazing story; Finn wouldn’t know any better.

Finn tore the holonovel out of her hands and tossed it aside on the bed.

“Hey,” Rey said. She couldn’t even pretend to be sorry for the loss of it. She was, however, sorry for the loss of a suitable distraction. Reluctantly she raised her eyes to Finn.

“What’s wrong?” Finn’s brown eyes were as serious and as concerned as his voice.

 _Nothing._ That was what Rey should have said. Instead she heard herself saying, “I kissed Poe.”

“You _what?_ ” Finn’s white-toothed grin was blinding. “You _kissed_ him? Well done, Rey! I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure you had it in you. Not that I think you’re-- you know what, I’m just gonna stop talking.”

“I think that would be for the best.”

“You kissed Poe!”

“That is what I said, yes.”

“So then what’s the problem? This is good news. My two best friends, happy, finally,” Finn said, and he did sound genuinely pleased. 

“I sort of… ran away, after,” Rey admitted. “And I might have been avoiding him since then.”

“Rey,” Finn said, clearly deeply disappointed.

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Kiss him again?” Finn suggested. At Rey’s expression, he said, “Or talk to him, maybe? No wonder he thinks you’re upset with him.”

“It was so awkward,” Rey said, rubbing her face. “Stars, it was embarrassing. How was I supposed to talk to him? What was I supposed to say? ‘Sorry I just shoved my face at yours, hope we can still be friends’?”

“Is that what you want? To just be friends?”

“Well, of course. Or, no. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know! I don’t know what I want. It’s all so confusing.”

“Which is probably why you should talk to Poe.”

“You’re not any help at all, Finn.”

“I’m just saying, he’s probably as confused as you are and you could figure it out together. Think of it this way. How would you feel if Poe had kissed you and then stopped talking to you?”

“Not good at all,” Rey admitted. “Oh, stars,” she said closing her eyes. “What did I do? He probably hates me.”

“If I can assure you of anything it’s that Poe definitely does not hate you,” Finn said, sounding faintly amused. “Have you seen the way he looks at you?”

Rey was absolutely not picturing how Poe had looked just before she kissed him. “Probably the same way he looks at you.”

Finn snorted. “Not quite. I mean, he likes me, definitely, but you, Rey… How was it? Kissing him?”

“Amazing,” Rey said without thinking. 

“Amazing!” Finn repeated, that huge smile taking over his face again. “You want to kiss him again, come on, admit it.”

“Oh, no,” Rey moaned, trying to hide her face and the blush that was spreading across her cheeks.

“You want to make out with Poe!”

Rey was smiling a little bit, she couldn’t help it. “Maybe a little.”

“So talk to him, dummy,” Finn said. “He’s waiting for your lead.”

“Why, though? Why is it me? I don’t know what I’m doing. Why is he leaving it to me?”

“Probably because he wants to make sure he’s not pushing you into anything. And also because I don’t think he actually knows what he’s doing, either.”

Both valid points, Rey knew. It didn’t seem like Poe actually did much dating, for all his easy charm. Karé and Jess had actually burst into laughter when Rey had once casually (she hoped) steered their conversation in that direction. But then later Karé had said, “When Poe gives away his heart, he really gives it away.” 

Rey thought about that a lot. 

“You were right,” Rey said. “When you said I was afraid. I am.”

Finn’s expression was soft with concern. “Lucky you’re so brave then.”

“I’m not that brave. Not like this.”

Finn pulled her into a hug and Rey wrapped her arms around him, tucking her face in against his neck. “Yes, you are,” he said. “You go after what you want and you don’t let anything stop you. You just have to decide what it is that you want. Is Poe what you want?”

Poe’s smile, Poe’s laugh, Poe’s arm around her waist.

“Yes,” Rey said.

-

Admitting what she wanted and making herself go after it were two different things. Finn could say what he wanted but this was _different,_ it took a different sort of bravery. Rey spent a morning sitting with Luke, meditating, then talking quietly, and somehow it helped. She had never even mentioned Poe’s name but she felt better, more relaxed, more sure of herself. 

She was Rey Skywalker and she had a family who loved her, a place she belonged. Whatever happened she knew it would be okay, somehow. She would be okay.

So she found Poe on the tarmac, waiting for him to finish speaking with a mechanic. He approached her with no small measure of uncertainty, his nervousness showing in the way he kept fiddling with his collar as he stood there, adjusting it, letting his hands drop, and then fixing it again.

Rey asked, “Can we, er, can we go for a walk, d’you think?”

“Sure,” Poe said, and they fell into step beside each other. They went off-base, walking beneath the trees in the mid-day warmth.

Now the problem was figuring out what to say. Should she apologize? For the kiss? For fleeing? Should she tell him that she wanted… wanted what? Wanted him? Should she ask what he wanted?

As all of her conflicting thoughts flitted through her head, Rey was more than a bit surprised when it was Poe who said something first.

“I like you.”

Rey turned her head sharply towards him. What? “I like you, too.”

“No, I mean, I _like_ you.”

“Is there a difference?”

Obviously frustrated, Poe swept a hand through his hair. “Blast,” he muttered. “Rey, I… Romantically, okay? I like you romantically.”

“Oh,” Rey said, rather stupidly, she felt. But what could she say? It was true. Poe hadn’t actually used those words, hadn’t said, ‘I love you’, but he didn’t really need to. It was true.

“I’m sorry, I… I’m not very good at this.”

“Yes, I’d been led to believe that was true.”

Poe’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “Who’s been telling you things about me?”

Rey waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Okay, whatever. Anyway, the point is, I’m not sure what…” Poe breathed out, like he was using the time to gather his thoughts. “We were friends and I didn’t want to ruin that, I didn’t know what you wanted and I thought maybe… Maybe I was just being a bit dirty, wanting what I wanted, so I thought I’d keep my distance, not… not push, or wreck things.”

She knew she shouldn’t but she giggled. “Dirty? Because you found me attractive?”

Poe was blushing. “You know what I mean. I’m so much older than you--”

“I don’t care about that,” Rey interrupted. Why did that matter?

“I care. There’s so much you don’t…” Poe hesitated, clearly concerned about misspeaking.

“My experiences might not have been your experiences,” Rey said, because Poe understanding this was more important than she could articulate, “but they were how I learned. And I did learn, Poe, I learned all about a lot of things, about how the galaxy works, about how lifeforms treat each other, about what’s fair and about how most of the time nothing is. I lived so many years alone on Jakku. I might not have kissed any boys or fallen in love, but I did a lot of growing up.”

“I know. I think about that a lot,” Poe said, and if there had been pity in his eyes Rey might have hit him. There wasn’t any pity, though. Only sorrow. 

Rey came to a stop, Poe drawing still beside her. She turned to him, searching his face. “I don’t know how we do this. I don’t know if it will work or if it will blow up in our faces. All I know is that I care about you and that I want to try. I think we owe it to ourselves to try. Luke-- my father-- he has so many regrets. I don’t want that for myself. I want to look ahead, not back.”

“I want that, too.”

“Then… then we can try? We’ll do this?”

Poe’s hand twitched at his side like he was thinking about touching her but ultimately decided against it. “Yeah. Yeah, we’ll do this. I want to, Rey, I do. You’re the… I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

“I’ve never met anyone like you before, either,” Rey said, liking the softness in Poe’s eyes and the way the sunlight was hitting his face, bronzing his skin even further. “So do you think we could try the kissing thing again? Since we’re doing this?”

“Depends on if you’re going to run away on me again.”

“I won’t run away,” Rey promised. She bit her lip and said, hoping she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt, “I liked kissing you.”

“I liked kissing you, too,” Poe said rather formally, though a blush had spread across his cheekbones.

Rey swallowed. “So, uh, maybe we should just--” And she kissed him.

This time Poe didn’t hesitate. He pulled Rey to him, their bodies fitting flush together. Rey slid one hand up the back of his neck and into his hair, pleased to discover that it was exactly as soft as it looked. Poe was only barely taller than her, maybe a couple of inches, and she liked the way they fit together, the way his body felt pressed to hers. She thought she would never get enough of the slow slide of his mouth against hers, the push and pull pressure of it, the barest hint of his tongue.

She didn’t really want to stop but eventually they settled back, breathing into each other’s space, and then Rey stepped back. She straightened her clothes, not even entirely sure how they’d gotten mussed in the first place, while Poe did the same. Okay, she remembered putting her hand up the back of his shirt, at least. 

Distinctly.

Poe made one blind attempt at fixing his hair, though it was a hopeless endeavor, honestly. “Come on, flygirl,” he said. “Let’s head back before Beebee starts worrying.”

“You know that doesn’t work quite right coming from you, flyboy.”

“I meant it as the highest form of compliment, obviously, and I’m offended you would assume otherwise.”

Rey wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or roll her eyes. She settled for one last tug at Poe’s hair. She had spent long enough wanting to run her fingers through that hair; she was sure as hell going to take advantage of every opportunity now. “How are you such a dork?”

“Natural talent. Lucky for me, you find it appealing.”

“I think you might be overstating things.”

“I’ll win you over,” Poe said, smiling.

Poe’s smile still did weird things to Rey’s insides but she didn’t mind so much now. Maybe especially because she realized her smile must do weird things to Poe’s insides, too.

Rey slipped her hand into Poe’s as they began heading back towards the base, enjoying the simple sensation of the touch of his palm on hers. She felt a surrounding warmth, a brush of approval, of genuine happiness that she was happy, and knew it was Anakin.

Rey had spent her whole life wanting to be loved.

It felt pretty damn good.

**_End_ **

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and thank you especially for all the lovely comments! Posting this was a bit of a nerve-wracking experience for me so your kind words meant a lot. <3 I hope you enjoyed! Come talk to me on Tumblr [here](http://serceleste.tumblr.com) if you want!


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